A $2500 Mistake on Bad Advice and How this May Look in FIRE

 Today I feel like someone above was looking out for me. I almost got suckered into a $2500 repair job, but luckily my ignorance that got me into this also got me out of it. 

Remember that dumb leak that I was avoiding. Well, my Maryland Aunty convinced me to call the insurance company. Don't do anything without calling them first, she badgered on. 

But essentially calling them was filing a claim which I wasn't there yet. I just wanted to fix the problem. 

Long story short, it's Sept and I just finally read one of the emails and the Insurance company is sending me a check for $1500. They said I keep the check whether I do the repairs or not.

What? I didn't even know I was filing a claim! I didn't even know the contractors intended to do this work. I just want to fix the leak. The wet spot in the ceiling was the least of my worries. 

But as luck would have it, the claims adjuster said they typically would've approved the claim and given the money directly to the contractor but because I was not responsive he sent it to me. 

Can you imagine, in my bury-my-head-in-the-sand technique these people would've come out there to a patch a hole in the ceiling for a leak that I don't even know is adequately repaired.  And I would've had to pay them $1,000 of my own money!!

Listening to my dumb Maryland Aunty. I'm so aggravated. But so relieved at the same time.

So now I have this money and I don't know what to do with it. Well I technically don't have it yet because I haven't checked my mail, but still. It's coming. 

So it's annoying that I'm in this position but I'm grateful that it didn't turn out much worse. 

One of my personal problems is dwelling on things I can't change (i.e. I want to be a child star). 

In other news, this makes me wonder and slightly petrified for FIRE.

My two biggest unknowns are the house and my car.

I regret not fighting harder to keep my Darling Aunty's car because it's something I had pseudo-factored into my FIRE plan. It was pretty much a brand new car with less than 20,000 miles on it that I had helped pay for.  But my car is about 14 years old and has 150k miles on it. I'd love to drive it another 150k miles for another 15 years but who knows. I imagine with age comes repairs. 

And then the house, my first issue potentially could've cost $2500 dollars. On a FIRE budget of 20k/yr that's more than 10%. I imagine this would have led to a lot of tears if I was truly working on a $20k/yr budget. 

So this is all a bit worrisome. 

So what do I do? Do I just pad my cash accounts. Yeah, I guess I can do that. I think psychologically taking the hits will be something to contend with. 

Thinking out loud... the car problem could be mitigated if I lived in an apartment in a walkable area where I could get by without a car. The house issue could also be solved by living in apartment. 

I guess I need to remember that my plans can always flex. I can always move if the house and car become an issue. FIRE is suppose to supplement my freedom not put me back in another box. 

It's just something to keep in mind. Living on a budget now when I don't really have to is a different mindset than when I quit my job and there will NO income coming in. I see why people are hesitant to take the leap.