One of the first things I did when my card was paid off was to take care of some much-needed house/lawn maintenance. Cost so far is over $800, but I'm glad we did it. I took the money from our emergency savings to cover that, but will replenish it by the end of this month.
The problem is that we now would like to redo our driveway, as it's in poor shape and is a bit of an eyesore. When we bought the house, our home inspector told us a new driveway (asphalt) would be about $8000. We'd like concrete, which would be even more.
We've debated attempting the driveway as a DIY project, and enlisting the help of some friends/family. Removing our current driveway would be the most difficult part, we're still trying to figure out the best way to dispose of all that material. Neither of us has a CDL, so we'd have to hire a dump truck with driver for probably two full days. I think we could form and pour/finish the concrete without too much difficulty. We might hire out the removal, if we can find someone reputable to do it cheap enough.
I will only do the driveway if we can afford to do it cash, I will not go in debt for it. I'd rather not wipe out all of our cash savings, but it is really tempting to get it done so that our house will look nicer though. We can't decide if we should get estimates and just go for it, or if we should hold off (and if so, what's the minimum amount that we need to keep in the emergency fund immediately AFTER making a large purchase/expenditure?)
Anyone have experience with replacing a driveway, to know how much it costs? If not, what's your thought on the money side of it?
