The Least Glamorous

Years ago when I first was on the ways and means committee at church I learned the importance of a deferred maintenance account. Taking care of a church campus meant that sometimes you were going to have big expenses that were not part of the daily maintenance. Things like a new roof or replacing HVAC units could add up quickly. If you had not put money aside to do these big jobs it could be a big hit to a budget.

What I learned is that was the same at home as it was at church. The only difference is at home you are the only stewards of your property. You do not have many to spread the costs over.

So I adopted this same stewardship at home as we took at church. Save in advance for things that are inevitably going to happen down the road so when it does you are prepared. That being said, hardly anything you save money for that could be considered in the deferred maintenance category is glamorous. New water heater, Ho hum, new roof, blasé. But the absolute lowest on my list is new anything that involves the crawl space.

The last two days we have had all the insulation and the vapor barrier in the crawl space replaced. Talk about throwing money in a hole in the ground never to be seen, but a must have to be done. There is nothing sexy about a vapor barrier. I would rather have done some landscaping that at least I could look at. I can open the crawl space door in the garage and see a white covering; BFD. But it was the right thing to do and thankfully not something that I will probably ever have to do again. I think I can take that off the deferred maintenance list.