Surprise Expenses?

Uptosnuff

Uptosnuff

Member
Location
Great Plains, USA
For those that are retirees, what have you found to be your biggest expense(s) during the year? Were these expenses a surprise or did you anticipate them?

I will be retired in a few months. I think I know what my biggest yearly expense will be, but I'm curious about others.
 

My surprise expenses were things like the auto renewal from Best Buy on my computer and a couple other things which only renew once a year, automatically, to my credit card and I totally forget about them till I get the bills. There were two others but I can’t remember what they are. 😂
 
Property taxes. I am behind one year but got a notice from the bureau of an impending tax sale in September. I have been paying on them every month for years and suddenly this notice! I called the Tax Claim Bureau. The woman who answered said the notice was a form letter that went out to everyone. She said, You're OK but we didn't want you to feel special. Then she cackled like a lunatic. Good Lord. People!
 
Like others, my biggest surprises are for repairs to my vehicle and me.

I rent so that helps to eliminate many of the surprise expenses that homeowners face.

I try to make an accurate budget that includes setting aside money each month in savings.

Over time those monthly savings help to smooth out the bumps.
 
Probably the largest "unexpected" expense, this past year, was having the water pump replaced in my trusty old 1997 Dodge Dakota pickup...it was making squealing noises. We have a very good local repair shop, and they replaced the pump, hoses, and anti-freeze for only $400 dollars....probably half of what a dealer would have charged. On average, keeping our existing vehicles in good shape probably only costs about 2 or 3 hundred a year....makes a lot more sense than spending tens of thousands to replace them.

We've replaced most of the appliances over the past 4 or 5 years, so only a couple more, and everything will be fairly new....we have plenty saved for such expenses. I had to buy a new chainsaw this past Fall, but it was "free", courteous of the government stimulus check.
 
A good thing to do on a regular basis is to routinely check your bills you have on Auto-pay. Like Netflix or Hulu...if you decide to cancel these subscriptions, make sure to check your auto pay is shut off.
Also, this is something that happened to me recently. I have one of those life alert type buttons. I had the quarterly payment on auto pay from my credit card. I decided to switch it to my bank debit card. No issues, it went smoothly until my first deduction after the switch..they charged BOTH my credit card and debit card. They never cancelled the one autopay when starting the other.
 
At the beginning of a new year is when the big bills come for taxes and house and car insurances. They are expected. Any repairs are not expected. One "unexpected" bill is when you get a hankering for a new car.
 
I think my biggest expense this year was a new Cambelt, and 4 new tyres.. getting the new cambelt made good sense before my old one snapped , and although I could afford it, it was unexpected.. and with the annual MOT and service it all came to a pretty penny
 
I didn't really have any surprise expenses. They raised our carrying charges (co-op speak for HOA fees) by $50 a month which wasn't unexpected. Actually I thought it would be $100 due to the rise in taxes and would've been glad to pay that since our housing costs are only about 36% of the average for the area. Any problems that affect common areas are paid for by the co-op fund. I don't own a car so don't have to worry about those unexpected car repairs that can be quite expensive.

I've been waiting for the longest to remodel my kitchen and get new flooring throughout the apartment but again, I'm prepared for that. It took forever to find the materials I want to use and as soon as I did, the pandemic hit. Like @Don M. I replaced some appliances, my dryer, which was about 25 years old, my microwave and countertop dishwasher. Only the microwave was somewhat a surprise but it's a small, inexpensive model which I wound up getting for free.

Your health care expenses might wind up being unexpectedly high if your insurance coverage isn't comprehensive enough.
 
Dental work....YOW! I've been true to my teeth all my life and up until lately, they haven't been false to me. BUT now things are beginning to fall apart and even though I have a dental policy, it doesn't cover all the cost of the treatments. I had to have two crowns this year so far and I'm pretty sure a root-canal is lurking around the corner. Then there was the "deep cleaning", which is the Spanish Inquisition of the dental world and, of course, barely covered by insurance. More fun ahead.....

Another thing that nobody plans on is the cost of going to out-of-town funerals. We get older, EVERYBODY we are related to or know gets older and the funeral music starts playing. I spent a lot of money going back and forth to my mother's house for months, eight hours driving each way, wear and tear on the car/tires/me. I had other deaths in the family and close friends circle that normally I would have been driving/flying to funerals for, but, of course, I didn't attend because of Covid. But as things loosen up, I figure there are a lot of them in my future.

Weddings, too, are expensive to attend, but at least you get some cake and some booze and have fun!
 
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Working out how much I spend on things like our local tax, insurances, utility bills and so on, I came to a figure that should cover it. Each year I save that much plus a third more for contingency. I have rarely needed the contingency, but it's always there for the unexpected.
 
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