DIY Money | Personal Finance, Budgeting, Debt, Savings, Investing
Sep 30, 2026 · 19 min · 14 segments
Should you be saving for events that happen every few years? Allie and Quint tackle periodic expenses, what to save for, and what not to save for. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See…
We got an interesting question today.
From David, what do you got? DIY!
DIY Money.
My question is related to periodic expenses.
I currently set aside a few hundred dollars each month for periodic expenses I expect over the next year, such as insurance, home repairs, car repairs, medical costs, registration, things like that.
As I plan for retirement, should I also begin setting aside money now for larger long-term expenses, such as replacing a car or a roof, that I know will eventually come up when I no longer have my current income? In addition to retirement accounts, does it make sense to build a separate brokerage account or reserves specifically for those future expenses? As always, thanks so much.
Okay, this is an interesting question, and I think I just want to start with you, Allie, because you're in the planning business.
And so if David was in front of you and you were putting a plan together, what would you say to him about what he's asking? Howard, among the best.
Yeah.
Well, I can answer his question and then we can talk about the psychology, which is, I think, maybe where you're maybe going to approach it and where I'd probably start as a planner, honestly.
But in general, when you're thinking about these periodic expenses, or I call them like escrows or accruals or whatever it might be, I'm almost thinking of this as a monthly expense.
Right.
Even though you mentioned $200, you're taking $200 a month, you're putting it into an account, and you're trying to figure out what kind of account, and then eventually you're going to spend it, and you kind of know what you're going to spend it on.
I think it's almost like...
You shouldn't invest that.
It's almost down to the principles.
Five years or less, you don't invest.
Well, everything you listed off of having, you know, your registration or your home insurance or Christmas, I think, is one we bring up a lot on the show.
They're pretty, like...
in stone things that will happen now the timing of like a HVAC repair or something like that you may not know exactly but you know it's coming up when it's coming up for the most part so I think to me this and you're probably expecting us to give you the logistical answer of like yes use a brokerage account use it this way or no don't and to that I'd say five years or less don't invest these all seem like monthly maintenance in your life so i wouldn't roll the dice on being able to pay those or not and that's kind of the short answer but i think this is a bigger question than that because to me some of this question comes into like trying to find the balance and maybe you can speak to this quint between taking opportunities and not just parking a ton of cash on the sidelines constantly but also having the security to know well you know the expense coming is coming up let's make sure that we can pay it and to me that's almost more of the question here
I yeah, I don't know the approach I really wanted to take with this.
I think what you just mentioned is is wise.
I think this is a slippery slope.
Like, where does it end?
We got an interesting question today.
From David, what do you got? DIY!
DIY Money.
My question is related to periodic expenses.
I currently set aside a few hundred dollars each month for periodic expenses I expect over the next year, such as insurance, home repairs, car repairs, medical costs, registration, things like that.
As I plan for retirement, should I also begin setting aside money now for larger long-term expenses, such as replacing a car or a roof, that I know will eventually come up when I no longer have my current income? In addition to retirement accounts, does it make sense to build a separate brokerage account or reserves specifically for those future expenses? As always, thanks so much.
Okay, this is an interesting question, and I think I just want to start with you, Allie, because you're in the planning business.
And so if David was in front of you and you were putting a plan together, what would you say to him about what he's asking? Howard, among the best.
Yeah.
Well, I can answer his question and then we can talk about the psychology, which is, I think, maybe where you're maybe going to approach it and where I'd probably start as a planner, honestly.
But in general, when you're thinking about these periodic expenses, or I call them like escrows or accruals or whatever it might be, I'm almost thinking of this as a monthly expense.
Right.
Even though you mentioned $200, you're taking $200 a month, you're putting it into an account, and you're trying to figure out what kind of account, and then eventually you're going to spend it, and you kind of know what you're going to spend it on.
I think it's almost like...
You shouldn't invest that.
It's almost down to the principles.
Five years or less, you don't invest.
Well, everything you listed off of having, you know, your registration or your home insurance or Christmas, I think, is one we bring up a lot on the show.
They're pretty, like...
in stone things that will happen now the timing of like a HVAC repair or something like that you may not know exactly but you know it's coming up when it's coming up for the most part so I think to me this and you're probably expecting us to give you the logistical answer of like yes use a brokerage account use it this way or no don't and to that I'd say five years or less don't invest these all seem like monthly maintenance in your life so i wouldn't roll the dice on being able to pay those or not and that's kind of the short answer but i think this is a bigger question than that because to me some of this question comes into like trying to find the balance and maybe you can speak to this quint between taking opportunities and not just parking a ton of cash on the sidelines constantly but also having the security to know well you know the expense coming is coming up let's make sure that we can pay it and to me that's almost more of the question here
I yeah, I don't know the approach I really wanted to take with this.
I think what you just mentioned is is wise.
I think this is a slippery slope.
Like, where does it end?
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