The Costs Of Unexpected Bills

Imagine if one of the following bad and unexpected things has just happened to you.

We hope that none of these things is an everyday occurrence for you. After all, if any of them were, they wouldn’t really be unexpected and would be something for which you could specifically plan. But not these kinds of events. When things like these events happen, their timing is random and they come as a surprise. Being what they are, that often also means dealing with large and unexpected bills for you to pay.While they may not be the kinds of things for which you may have a specific plan to address, they are exactly the kinds of things for which many personal finance experts recommend you have emergency savings to pay for, whether in part or in full. Emergency savings are perhaps the cheapest insurance you can have to deal with the unexpected costs of a personal emergency.But how much do these kinds of emergency expenses cost? In truth, that’s something that will vary a lot from person to person and the nature of the unexpected events themselves. There is however some average cost data for each of the unexpected event scenarios we’ve outlined, which might be useful in plan out how much you need to have for your emergency savings. Or at least seeing if they can handle the cost of a “typical” unexpected emergency event.The following interactive chart presents a range of “average” costs for each of our unexpected scenarios. Please hover your cursor over the low, average, and high-end estimate to get the numbers for each scenario (if you’ve accessed this article on a site that republishes our RSS news feed, you may need to click through to our site to access a working version):Unexpected CostsAverage costs of unexpected bills in the United States in 2023-24Interactive chart showing average costs of unexpected (or often unplanned) bills in 2023-24 for car repairs, medical emergencies, and home repairLowAverageHigh$500$1,000$1,500$2,000$2,500$3,000$3,500$4,000$4,500$5,000$5,500$6,000$6,500$7,000Car Repair$548$900$1,475Medical Emergency$1,500$2,100$3,000Home Repair$1,667$4,000$6,549 Chart: Political Calculations 2024Source: MultipleGet the dataclick through to our site Download imageCreated with DatawrapperHere’s where the numbers come from for each scenario:

A lot of these estimates are taken from the annual costs of “typical” maintenance and repair procedures. Since many of these unexpected events won’t happen each year, you could aim at saving the “low” end estimates each year as your regular emergency savings plan or more if your income allows it, and build it up over time to where you can handle bigger emergencies. As for how much you might need to have altogether in any designated emergency savings you have, that’s a different question for a different day.More By This Author:US New Home Market Cap Spikes with Mortgage Rate DropS&P 500 Rises As Federal Reserve Finally Commits To Rate CutsLess Than Useful Data: The Real-World Costs Of Bad Data