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725

I woke up yesterday to sewage backflowing into my basement (thankfully only about 30 gallons of it, so the only things that got wet were concrete and and a pile of remodeling waste waiting on room in the trash bin).

This started with a call to a drain clearing service and rapidly escalated to an excavator digging up my yard to replace a section of my main sewer line that had been completely plugged by roots and dislodged to boot (how this didnt create a smelly sinkhole I have no idea...must be the high clay content in the soil).

The contractors started the usual Bad News Spiel about options for opening a line of credit and how you can take 5-10 years to pay it back because main line repairs or replacements can easily run into the $10-$30k range (no surprise to me...mine are buried deep and I'm a long way back from the road).

I just smiled at my spouse and asked if they prefer credit cards or a check, because that's what the emergency fund is for. No debt, no stress about how we're going to pay for it, just the minor inconvenience of disposing of waste water like we're on an overnight camping trip.

I woke up yesterday to sewage backflowing into my basement (thankfully only about 30 gallons of it, so the only things that got wet were concrete and and a pile of remodeling waste waiting on room in the trash bin). This started with a call to a drain clearing service and rapidly escalated to an excavator digging up my yard to replace a section of my main sewer line that had been completely plugged by roots and dislodged to boot (how this didnt create a smelly sinkhole I have no idea...must be the high clay content in the soil). The contractors started the usual Bad News Spiel about options for opening a line of credit and how you can take 5-10 years to pay it back because main line repairs or replacements can easily run into the $10-$30k range (no surprise to me...mine are buried deep and I'm a long way back from the road). I just smiled at my spouse and asked if they prefer credit cards or a check, because that's what the emergency fund is for. No debt, no stress about how we're going to pay for it, just the minor inconvenience of disposing of waste water like we're on an overnight camping trip.

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[–] • 1 pt

Use a credit card with cash back like Costco, or a points card like American Express

[–] • 2 pts

Yep, I did. It was great to have the option. Not all contractors take CCs for such large expenses due to the merchant fees, but for those who do I'll happily take the points.

[–] • 1 pt

Nice. I think some bank debit cards also give rewards like RBC bank.

[–] • 0 pt

You could always 0% apr cash advance from the credit card into your checking account to pay vendors who refuse card fees directly.

[–] • 1 pt

Yikes, how much did it end up costing?

[–] • 3 pts

$11k to repair it. $20-something if the whole line has to be re-run (unlikely, but they're still digging so TBD).

Not my favorite surprise expense, but because we had cash in an emergency fund we could just throw money at it and say "IDGAF what it costs, fix it right and fix it now".

[–] • 0 pt

Did you consider renting a backhoe and doing it yourself? I had the same issue a couple years ago and did it myself for about 400 bucks plus 700 for backhoe rental.