How to handle unexpected expenses?

blondie42107 · October 2014

How do you handle unexpected expenses? We have an emergency fund however we didn't plan for this expense - which is the definition of emergency...

Looks like we will have to rip out carpet in our one bedroom ASAP. Related, we are also foreseeing vet bills in the near future. Our sweet kitty isn't getting any younger and we're dealing with some unknown medical issues. We are trying to figure out what is best for our kitty but unfortunately we also have to look at the financial aspects as well. Some good friends of ours had their pet back and forth to our state university vet and although they don't regret it, it's been a lingering financial burden.

We love our kitty, our first "baby." Such a roller-coaster...

Edited to say: Our cat is suddenly having medical issues and the mentioned carpet appears to be ruined by cat urine. We have been unsuccessful in getting it clean. We do budget for routine pet expenses. We are still working on reaching our emergency fund goal but do have our max OOP medical and our auto/home insurance deductibles accounted for.

lifeonthehill · October 2014

We count vet emergencies as a part or our emergency fund. Our poor cat was riddled with cancer while I was out of town for work in August. It cost us nearly $500 to have her seen, diagnosed and sadly put to sleep. It came directly from the e-fund because in my mind it is no different than the time H wound up in the hospital after a hockey accident. We do however budget for annual visits and shots for our three cats.

As far as ripping up the carpet if there is any way at all you can put it off and try and save up at least some of the cost then do that.

ETA: I can't spell.

blondie42107 · October 2014

alyssa32713 said:
We count vet emergencies as a part or our emergency fund. Our poor cat was riddled with cancer while I was out of town for work in August. It cost us nearly $500 to have her seen, diagnosed and sadly put to sleep. It came directly from the e-fund because in my mind it is no different than the time H wound up in the hospital after a hockey accident. We do however budget for annual visits and shots for our three cats.

As far as ripping up the carpet if there is any way at all you can put it off and try and save up at least some of the cost then do that.

ETA: I can't spell.

I would love to save up for carpet replacement but our cat has urinated in a few spots and we can't get it out. The smell is lingering in our whole house. We rented a carpet cleaner and used the enzyme cleaner, nothing. It seems to be pretty bad.

We are waiting to talk with the vet again but it's looking like kidney failure or similar. It's been an emotional few days trying to figure out what we'll do if the news isn't good.

We budget for routine pet costs (vet appts, shots, food, etc).

Sisugal · October 2014

You have a pet - so there should be a line item in your budget for pet expenses and medical care. Anything over that comes from emergency fund and then replaced.

Carpet - how is this a surprise - carpets do not need replacing overnight. You should have a line item for household maintenance/replacement for flooring, windows, roof, furnace, appliances, etc. They all need to be replaced at some point - so you contribute to a fund and then pull the money out as needed
Why the carpet removal ASAP? Can it be cleaned?
Remove it and live with the bare subfolor until you save for new carpet?

blondie42107 · October 2014

You have a pet - so there should be a line item in your budget for pet expenses and medical care. Anything over that comes from emergency fund and then replaced.

Carpet - how is this a surprise - carpets do not need replacing overnight. You should have a line item for household maintenance/replacement for flooring, windows, roof, furnace, appliances, etc. They all need to be replaced at some point - so you contribute to a fund and then pull the money out as needed
Why the carpet removal ASAP? Can it be cleaned?
Remove it and live with the bare subfolor until you save for new carpet?

The carpets are actually quite new and my children sleep in there.

I already posted that the carpets are soaked with cat urine which happened less than a week ago and we've had no luck getting the smell out with a carpet cleaner and enzyme cleaner.

I also stated we budget for routine pet expenses.

Xstatic3333 · October 2014

I'm so sorry about your kitty, and hope it will be something that the vet can treat easily. T&P!

To answer the original question, we put aside a little bit of money each month for the "expected unexpected" things in life. The biggest of these is car repair. We haven't upped it yet since we bought our home, though we should and I'm taking your post as a reminder to do so immediately (thanks!). We try to keep $1000 total in this account at minimum, and use it for things like non-routine car repair, emergency travel to visit family, oh crud my paycheck for my second job was late and I need to borrow from somewhere, etc. We only have one account, but you could easily have multiple accounts-one for vet (maybe you could start a vet fund outside of the routine expenses?), one for car, one for home, etc. This used to share a physical account with our travel savings but I found that got too confusing and just opened a separate travel account.

Re. the carpet, it's a little hard for me to identify, perhaps because I haven't had a cat, but if that's truly an emergency I'd just use your e-fund and then pay it right back. I grew up with small dogs, so I was used to little yellow "spots" on the carpet but the smell was never a long term issue. But, like I said, cats could very well be different so I'll defer to the cat people on that. If you can find something that would make the smell go away, I would save up to replace it instead of pulling from the e-fund. It sounds like you've tried most things; the only other option left would be a professional service most likely but it could be worth a call.

In any case, good luck with everything and hope it all will go smoothly.

blondie42107 · October 2014

Xstatic3333 said:
I'm so sorry about your kitty, and hope it will be something that the vet can treat easily. T&P!

To answer the original question, we put aside a little bit of money each month for the "expected unexpected" things in life. The biggest of these is car repair. We haven't upped it yet since we bought our home, though we should and I'm taking your post as a reminder to do so immediately (thanks!). We try to keep $1000 total in this account at minimum, and use it for things like non-routine car repair, emergency travel to visit family, oh crud my paycheck for my second job was late and I need to borrow from somewhere, etc. We only have one account, but you could easily have multiple accounts-one for vet (maybe you could start a vet fund outside of the routine expenses?), one for car, one for home, etc. This used to share a physical account with our travel savings but I found that got too confusing and just opened a separate travel account.

Re. the carpet, it's a little hard for me to identify, perhaps because I haven't had a cat, but if that's truly an emergency I'd just use your e-fund and then pay it right back. I grew up with small dogs, so I was used to little yellow "spots" on the carpet but the smell was never a long term issue. But, like I said, cats could very well be different so I'll defer to the cat people on that. If you can find something that would make the smell go away, I would save up to replace it instead of pulling from the e-fund. It sounds like you've tried most things; the only other option left would be a professional service most likely but it could be worth a call.

In any case, good luck with everything and hope it all will go smoothly.

Thanks!
Male cat urine is not a pleasant smell. We aren't using our furnace right now because it's spreading the smell even worse.

Our budget isn't perfect and we can't pull special emergency funds out of nowhere. We also don't have a ton of free money at the end of every month. We just updated and included an estimate in our October budget for the ER bill our son had from last month and the two follow up appts it required - hence emergency fund that covers our OOP max.

H mentioned doing the carpet on an interest free credit card promotion but I don't want to.

I hope our kitty will be okay as well. We've had him for a long time.

Xstatic3333 · October 2014

That sounds tough. I may have misunderstood-are you in a situation where you have an e-fund but it's not fully funded or already depleted right now? If that's the case, you've probably already looked into this but is there any chance there's hardwood under that carpet? Something decent enough that you could throw a cheap rug over temporarily and it would be okay as a stopgap? I know some of the board have mentioned polishing hardwood as a DIY and it didn't sound too bad. I think Home Depot rents the machine. For cheap rugs, in our area we have a store called Ocean State Job Lot that sells loads of them. Nothing is heirloom quality, but it'll get you through. Does your area have something like that?

Going forward I'd try to save, even if it's a tiny amount I have a dental bill this week so I'm literally putting $10 into my short term account, but it's something to make me feel like progress is happening.

blondie42107 · October 2014

Xstatic3333 said:
That sounds tough. I may have misunderstood-are you in a situation where you have an e-fund but it's not fully funded or already depleted right now? If that's the case, you've probably already looked into this but is there any chance there's hardwood under that carpet? Something decent enough that you could throw a cheap rug over temporarily and it would be okay as a stopgap? I know some of the board have mentioned polishing hardwood as a DIY and it didn't sound too bad. I think Home Depot rents the machine. For cheap rugs, in our area we have a store called Ocean State Job Lot that sells loads of them. Nothing is heirloom quality, but it'll get you through. Does your area have something like that?

Going forward I'd try to save, even if it's a tiny amount I have a dental bill this week so I'm literally putting $10 into my short term account, but it's something to make me feel like progress is happening.

Thanks. Your comments have been helpful.

Our emergency fund isn't depleted. We are still trying to reach our goal but we have enough to cover auto/home deductibles and medical out of pocket. (We utilize my company's flex accounts for medical and dependent care.)

I guess we've been lucky and haven't really hit a "when it rains, it pours" like this before.

We have decided to add to our Efund goal to cover extra in pet expenses.

H and I are now talking about using our home improvement credit card and doing it through the interest free promotion.

I'm not aware of any of those rug stores but I'll start looking. Thanks!

formerlyGDaisy09 · October 2014

Ts&Ps for your kitty! Yes! you should have a line item for pet expenses, anything over can come from the e-fund. does your vet take CareCredit? we use that for major vet-bills (emergency dental work for the cat, a bite on the dog...) any charge over $200 is interest free for 6 months (ask them to charge the amount you can reasonably pay-off in 6 months and use the e-fund for the rest).

as far as the rug goes, check with a carpet cleaning company. I was just talking with our vet about this like 6 hours ago. she has an elderly cat who is territorial and found a carpet cleaning company that was able to get the cat urine out.

vlagrl29 · October 2014

I don't like to have to keep track of a lot of savings accounts so we have 1 savings named "emergency fund" - that includes anything that may come up (car,pets,house,medical) that we weren't expecting. We then replenish it. I like to keep things simple.

So sorry to hear about your cat. We have a schnauzer that is almost 7 years old and I would do anything to keep her alive as long as she wasn't suffering to much.

blondie42107 · October 2014

H and I just tore the carpet up. The subfloor is wet. It's our children's bedroom so we have to deal with it sooner than later. We have decided to use emergency funds as needed but will review our budget to see if we can tighten it up some (alreadypplanned to do so because of ds's medical from last month). There are a few things we've been thinking about selling so hopefully we can replenish the efund soon!

Princess_Lily · October 2014

Here is a Life Pro Tip:

White Vinegar is a neutralizer to cat urine. If you know where your kitty pee'd, soak the spot(s) for an hour or so in the vinegar. Then, get a carpet shampoo/cleaner and wash the carpet.

This will delay the extra $$ of a carpet replacement.

Sisugal · October 2014

Have you considered a hard surface flooring for the bedroom rather than carpet (use throw rugs or an area rug on the hard surface) ? - that would be much easier to deal with when you have a pet.

The wet spots on the floor under layment will need to be treated - or the smell will continue.
I would not recarpet until you no longer have a cat - or the possibility of a repeat performance may occur - or have a plan to keep the cat out of the room - any lingering residue can be smelled by the cat and they will return to that spot.

jessica490 · October 2014

blondie42107 said:

H and I just tore the carpet up. The subfloor is wet. It's our children's bedroom so we have to deal with it sooner than later. We have decided to use emergency funds as needed but will review our budget to see if we can tighten it up some (alreadypplanned to do so because of ds's medical from last month). There are a few things we've been thinking about selling so hopefully we can replenish the efund soon!

Good idea. We just normally take expensive emergencies out of our e-fund as well and replenish when we can.

Sorry about your kitty, hope s/he gets better....

blondie42107 · October 2014

We tried vinegar and it didn't work. (We've had mixed reviews from the vet. The smell of vinegar can encourage some cats to return to that area - similar smell to ammonia.) Next we tried the enzyme pet cleaner and that didn't work. We rented a carpet cleaner and cleaned the carpet twice. That didn't work.

We tore the carpet out. We're treating the subfloor right now. Hopeful we don't have to replace that.

H and I have always had pets throughout childhood and on. H grew up on a farm. This is our first pet together and our first experience of dealing with an aging pet. We've never had any pet issues thus far (almost 10 years and we have two cats). We see the vet this afternoon.

Thanks for all helpful suggestions. After this experience we will definitely be reevaluating our budget.

smerka · October 2014

When we first moved into our house, our cat peed all over the living room carpet. When we pulled it up to put in laminate, we sprayed Wool lite Pet OXY (it's actually for carpet)on the subfloor and let it sit overnight. That worked for us. You can also try Freshwave. They have it at Bed Bath and Beyond, if you didn't rip the carpet, someone might be able to reinstall it, but it might just be cheaper to get new.

blondie42107 · October 2014

Thanks! I'll look into the pet oxy, @smerka‌

We had two fairly large areas on different sides of the room. We are decided to look at flooring options after work and find the best option for our budget.

jessica490 · October 2014

Yesterday I just read an article about cat pee stains and the person had the same question that you did! The lady said to try the vinegar as well as the enzyme spray just as you did but I guess that didn't work. She said they were VERY tough stains to get out...so if that doesn't work, you may need to replace the carpet. Did you try Nature's Miracle?

blondie42107 · October 2014

jessica490 said:
Yesterday I just read an article about cat pee stains and the person had the same question that you did! The lady said to try the vinegar as well as the enzyme spray just as you did but I guess that didn't work. She said they were VERY tough stains to get out...so if that doesn't work, you may need to replace the carpet. Did you try Nature's Miracle?

Yes, we used Nature's Miracle. Once we removed the carpet, we treated the subfloor with Nature's and that worked. Just wouldn't work on the carpet because it soaked through so far.

We are getting some estimates on Friday. We found some very affordable options thanks to sales and close outs. We already have a credit card through the home improvement store. So we are looking at 0% interest for six months. We'll put the full amount on that and then evaluate our budget. We did a quick estimate ourselves last night. H thinks we can have it paid in a few months without taking from the efund.

jessica490 · October 2014

blondie42107 said:

Yesterday I just read an article about cat pee stains and the person had the same question that you did! The lady said to try the vinegar as well as the enzyme spray just as you did but I guess that didn't work. She said they were VERY tough stains to get out...so if that doesn't work, you may need to replace the carpet. Did you try Nature's Miracle?
Yes, we used Nature's Miracle. Once we removed the carpet, we treated the subfloor with Nature's and that worked. Just wouldn't work on the carpet because it soaked through so far. We are getting some estimates on Friday. We found some very affordable options thanks to sales and close outs. We already have a credit card through the home improvement store. So we are looking at 0% interest for six months. We'll put the full amount on that and then evaluate our budget. We did a quick estimate ourselves last night. H thinks we can have it paid in a few months without taking from the efund.

That sounds good!

hoffse · October 2014

jessica490 said:

blondie42107 said:

Yesterday I just read an article about cat pee stains and the person had the same question that you did! The lady said to try the vinegar as well as the enzyme spray just as you did but I guess that didn't work. She said they were VERY tough stains to get out...so if that doesn't work, you may need to replace the carpet. Did you try Nature's Miracle?
Yes, we used Nature's Miracle. Once we removed the carpet, we treated the subfloor with Nature's and that worked. Just wouldn't work on the carpet because it soaked through so far. We are getting some estimates on Friday. We found some very affordable options thanks to sales and close outs. We already have a credit card through the home improvement store. So we are looking at 0% interest for six months. We'll put the full amount on that and then evaluate our budget. We did a quick estimate ourselves last night. H thinks we can have it paid in a few months without taking from the efund.

That sounds good!

Agreed - it would be great to be able to cash-flow that project. Do you have enough in your efund to cover it just in case?

beetee123 · October 2014

So sorry about your cat! We have three young cats, and I dread the day that we will have to make such difficult decisions, even if they are 15-20 years off (hopefully). Have you tried spraying the urine spots with a vinegar and water mixture? That's how I clean up our carpets when my dog pees on them. It neutralizes the odor. Then you could try using a rental rug doctor, but I've heard that it's better to just use water rather than their cleaning product. I would just try to find whatever solution you can to help remedy the situation in the interim, keep the doors to bedrooms closed, etc. just until you find out what is going on with kitty. It would stink to replace all of the carpets only to have the cat pee all over them again. Good luck!

How to handle unexpected expenses?

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