It’s true what Dave Ramsey says – as soon as you start working to get on top of your budget and spending, Murphy does what he can to try and move into your spare room. Thankfully I already rent out my second bedroom so there really is no space for him, but he’s a persistent bugger.

First, it started with my having to get new tires for my car. While this would have been no big event had I been on the Dave Ramsey plan for several months, I was just starting out and therefore had very little built up in my Car Service envelope to cover such a major expense. I say “major” partly because my car apparently has performance tires on it meaning that I couldn’t replace them with just any ol’ tire. Rather, they needed to either have two new “full” performance tires (read: exactly what came on the car). These tires would have run me nearly $200 each. The second (and far more appealing) option was to replace all 4 tires with less-pricey, all-weather tires of a slightly different size. The job still ended up running me about $400 total with installation, etc. but caused me to dip into my starter emergency fund to make up the difference between what I had and what I needed and kicked Murphy out.

But like I said, he’s persistent.

No sooner had I gotten my emergency fund replenished than I started having leaking issues with my 21-year-old roof. Again, not something that would have been a problem had I enough time on the DR plan to fully save up for the roof replacement, but the leaks caused me to have the roof replaced sooner…MUCH sooner…than expected. The job was completed this past weekend which thrilled me since we had some serious rain yesterday, still it’s not only an expense I’m having to tackle sooner than my budget allowed. I haven’t gotten the final bill yet, but due to additional plywood replacements that they hadn’t originally thought they’d have to do, it may completely wipe out my emergency fund and then some… Murphy strikes again.

I know that once I have my fully funded emergency fund (3-6 months of expenses), Murphy will be almost completely repelled – it’s just this interim time where I feel like he’s sitting on my front porch that gets discouraging.

I know he’ll be gone eventually – I just need to stick with the plan. If only I could sic Chena on him in the meantime.

I should probably also mention that, although having to dip into and subsequently replenish my emergency fund, while annoying, has been a key part of my staying on-track and on-plan.  In my pre-Dave Ramsey life, I would have reached for the credit cards faster than you could say, “stupid tax.”  In other words, the emergency fund – while still only in the starter stages – is doing its job, and doing it well.