Cashed My Coins and Bought a Fridge

I cashed my coins and bought a new fridge. That pretty much sums up the past 3 weeks. But it is noteworthy that these two things highlighted two concepts I had written about in the past. Namely, the need for an emergency fund and the power of spare change. In fact, I wrote about the need for an emergency fund just this February, but I never imagined I would need to exercise this concept this quickly. That is all part of the unexpected. Then there is the power of spare change. Basically, how small amounts add up to larger amounts over time.

So, back in late April I was awoken in the middle of the night by a loud unpleasant buzzing noise coming from my refrigerator. That buzzing noise sounded the death of my refrigerator. I tried to fix it myself and even while I got the buzzing sound to stop (it would return at certain periods of time) and refrigerator was no longer cooling. Luckily, I did not have much food in it at the time so the spoiling was kept to a minimal. Nevertheless, I held onto my broken fridge for a week hoping the problem could be fixed, but it was not to be. I was not going to call a repair guy as the cost to repair the fridge would have been the same cost of a new fridge (or higher). It was time to buy another one.

My food expenses for that week was also higher because I was ordering food (lunch and dinner) outside instead of making food myself. I had bought that refrigerator when if first moved into my new apartment. To be honest, at the time, I really did now how much space I would need for a weeks’ worth of my food as I had never lived on my own before. So, at the time, I bought a full-sized regular fridge. After living on my own for a while, I realized the refrigerator way bigger than it needed to be. More than half of the space inside was unused.

Therefore, instead of buying a new full-sized fridge, I decided to downsize and go with a mini-fridge with a freezer component. I found a very nice min-fridge at Home Depot and bought it. The new mini-fridge cost a total of $215.57 (tax included). Once I was sure it worked, I carted the old one out and the rest is history. It fits a weeks’ worth of food nicely and having a smaller sized fridge really enlarged my kitchen area. Overall, I am very happy with the purchase. I am glad I had my emergency fund available to absorb this unexpected expense.

But the story doesn’t end there. After buying the new fridge, I decided it was time to cash my completely full coin jar. I when to the nearest Coinstar, since I didn’t want to spend hours counting over 1000 coins. Altogether, I had a total of $172.85 worth of coins and after the processing fee I walked out with $152.28 in cash. That is the power of spare change. Those seemingly small amounts have added up over time to over $150! That means that the amount of spare change saved over the year covered 70% of the new fridge purchase! The emergency fund covered the remaining 30% of the cost which would be $63.29!

So, there we have it! Two financial concepts, an emergency fund and saving spare change, working together to cover an unexpected expense. While I would have preferred to have no unexpected expense, all things considered, I was able to make it work out for the better. Minimized the damage and maximized the benefit. That’s how I look at it. What do the rest of you think? Do you have an emergency fund? Do you save your spare change? Let me know in the comments below!