the oh shoot fund.

I should say....

Since I bought the truck, I have spent $25,000 on maintenance. About $13,000 of that is for other people doing work on it like the frame, kingpins and now the differential.

About a $2000 per month average. I can honestly say, $800 of that is MY foolishness in Feb when I somehow blew all four of my airbags on the tractor. The rest of it in one form or another is either preventative maint or fixing something serious enough to shut the truck down. It would have been a LOT higher had I not done a bunch of the work myself.

 

I think you are doing just fine, it is always better to have to much stashed away then not enough. Once you have enough for a overhaul, and the tow bill incase the engine lets go in the middle of Kansas or somewhere, I would keep adding to that fund. After you get plenty in the oh shoot fund, I have always kept 3 months worth of operating expenses stashed away as well. In case some one doesn't pay, you get sick or hurt, your best customer goes out of business and you have to find new customers, or any of the other million things that can happen out here. Once you have all that covered plus, then maybe I would cut back a little, even take a extra fishing trip every month or so.

 

I think you and I bought our trucks around the same time. I have spent $24498 in maintenance and repairs on my truck in the 12 months since purchase. I spent a lot of that in the first 6 months. Lately (knock on wood) its been ok.

 

I personally would not setup three accounts, to me that just seems a little excessive. Most people change oil every 12-15,000 miles, if you run 10,000 miles on an average month @.05cpm you are more than covering the cost of an oil change. I haven't paid someone to change my oil in a while, but the last time with an oil sample at SpeedCo was like $300. I change mine at 15,000 miles, so every month and a half give or take. I typically change my oil myself and with oil, filters, and grease is right around $200.

Myself instead of having three accounts to distribute money to I would work with .05cpm for oil changes and all the other little stuff, if it isn't enough you can always add another penny or two to it. If the .05 is more than enough you can build that account to a surplus and then cut back your cpm into that one and add it into the rebuild/replace account.