Planning For Infrequent Expenses

Planning ahead of infrequent expenses is a common gap in financial plans. We want to anticipate spending that may only happen once per year, or once every few years. As a best practice we want to plan for these expenses monthly.

This template will help you estimate infrequent expenses like vehicle repairs, vehicle upgrades, and home repairs. After completing the template it might be necessary to go back to your expenses estimate and change your original values in Housing Expenses and Transportation Expenses.

If you are missing some of the options below please go to the Profile section and in the Financial Profile area select "Home Owner" and "Vehicle Owner" if you own these assets.

Vehicle Maintenance and Fees

This is money set aside for future vehicle maintenance. This could be new tires, oil changes, new brakes etc. The recommendation is to plan for $0.05/km so the total amount will vary depending on distance driven per year. You can also add license and registration renewals.

Vehicle Upgrades

This is money set aside for future vehicle upgrades. This could be for a brand new vehicle or an upgrade to a newer used vehicle.

Home Maintenance

This is money you set aside for future maintenance on your home. This could be a new roof, a new furnace, cosmetic improvements etc. The general recommendation is to set aside from 0.5 - 1.5% of your homes value each year for maintenance costs.

Home value refers to the "rebuild" value of your home. This is the structure only and ignores the value of the land. This is commonly found on your home insurance coverage or you can make an estimate.

Using the structure value helps equalize between areas that have higher or lower land values. For example, a home purchased for $500,000 in Cornwall, Ontario will typically be a larger home and have a higher structure value than a home purchased for $1,000,000 in Toronto, Ontario. The home in Cornwall might have a structure value of $400,000 and higher expected repair/maintenance cost in the future versus the home in Toronto which might have a structure value if $300,000.

Other Infrequent Expenses To Plan For

There is an option in the personal expenses area to add miscellaneous spending, this can also be used for infrequent expenses like gifts, vacations, electronic upgrades etc. We recommend including an estimate in the miscellaneous spending category in your expenses summary under Personal Expenses