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Scary power outage, how to categorize the spending?

July 29th, 2006 at 05:41 pm

Well, I thought I'd spent all I was going to spend, and then the power went out yesterday. I couldn't cook dinner, and DH wasn't thrilled about the idea of a salad, so we ended up ordering a pizza.

The scary part came in when, after dinner, the power came back on for just a few seconds and then we heard yelling outside. A power line came down two houses up from us and was burning on the ground. Not only was it quite a fire, but the sound was unbelievable. Even inside our house, we could hear it--kind of like the humming of a huge machine of some kind. But no harm done, and the power was back on for good just before dark.

We had an outage back on July 4th, too, and ended up getting our cheeseburgers at Wendy's. There are lots of times we end up getting take-out in the midst of some emergency; medical things, cars breaking down, snowstorms. And I never know whether to count it as regular food spending or to take it out of the Emergency Fund. This time I'll call it an Everyday Expense and count it as part of August.

4 Responses to “Scary power outage, how to categorize the spending?”

  1. campfrugal Says:
    1154211340

    That is scary when wires come down and there is potential fire in the area. Glad everyone is safe. As for food, I would use the grill to cook. i rarely use my stove through the summer. Our stove is also gas, so cooking grilled cheeses and soup or breakfast for dinner is always an option for us.

  2. StressLess Says:
    1154221228

    My dad always said to have a gas stove because when the power is out, you can still use it. However, as far as I know the newer stoves have electronic ignitions and they won't work when the electric is off. Or have you found a way around it? (Oh, for an old Chambers like my MIL had! You could always light them with a match if you had to.)

    I suppose it might be a good idea to get a grill, if just for emergencies... maybe something will turn up on clearance.

  3. rusty@saving Says:
    1154238540

    we just got done having the power out for a week in st louis...just getting things back to normal. unfortunately, a lineman died a few days ago.
    i am glad every one is safe,, and that everything turned out alright.
    also, when the power goes out, see ifyou can get some gallons of water at the store, freeze them at a friends, and then put them in your freezer.

  4. baselle Says:
    1154298886

    This might be a good time to plan for the times when the power is out. I'm not sure where you are blogging from, but you could be in a situation where not only is the electricity out in your house, but out at the Wendy's too. Smile We have the grill, and a coleman camping stove that we pull out during emergencies. They both worked well after hurricane Fran. I'll bet you can find some deals around September/October when camping season ends.

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