[BiggarView]

If you put money in your budget to repair the items that going to be covered by the EW, then you have just given yourself a self-funded EW. It they never break, you win. If you have average repair issues you breakeven. If you don't have the fiscal discipline to manage this and just want the peace of mind that paying somebody else to handle it... for a price is for you... then go for it.

If you want to manage it yourself... Start off such a repair fund with the upfront cost of the EW, add to it regularly and you're probably good to go. If you want to take on some risk, you can do like Lynwood and buy you some nice dividend stock like AT&T currently paying out a 6% dividend. 1875 will buy 62 shares of it , at a dividend of 2.00/share thats 124 per year to add to the kitty.(2675 would buy around 90 shares or $180/year) AT&T is also relatively cheap right now, but the dividend is safe. If a big enough repair comes along, you sell the stock and use the proceeds to pay for it. If you really want to gamble, "pot" stocks are the speculative item in the markets these days. I don't recommend speculating unless you really know what you're doing.

JMHO.