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A lot of you know or have been following along with the pool and have asked questions about how much it costs, how we’re budgeting, and some of the logistics behind it.
When we moved to North Carolina, we promised our girls that we would have a pool. That was the only thing we promised them. When we were looking at houses, we passed on homes that didn’t have an option of adding a pool. In fact, before we put an offer in on our current home, we had our realtor check the land survey and with the HOA to make sure we could add a pool. Bottom line: Not being able to put in a pool was a deal breaker because it was a promise we made to the girls. We did see a few houses that already had a pool, but the rest of the house didn’t really work for us, so we started thinking about what it would cost to add a pool.
Have you ever googled this question? I’ve never seen the cost MORE all over the map for a project. From $20K to $200K! Chris and I started with a budget meeting. We’ve been budgeting with You Need a Budget (YNAB) since 2016. If you’re not familiar, YNAB is an award-winning personal finance software (and proven method to gain total control of your money.) It has been a life saver for us. This process is what makes every project possible, and we can hardly believe that at the end of this particular financial goal, we’ll be wearing bathing suits. Ha! But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up…
How Much did the Pool Cost?
First of all — pool progress! Haha! But also, we’re gonna get real with numbers here. It’s something we really wish we could find on the internet when we were budgeting for a pool. We made more than $700K on the sale of our Idaho house. A lot of that money has gone to moving expenses, a down payment on this house, the kitchen renovation, and we assigned a big chunk of change to putting in a pool!
With YNAB, you assign every one of your incoming dollars with a job. So when we made money on the sale of the house, it was easy and exciting to put our dollars in each of those “buckets.”
We’ve learned that a couple of things go into the cost of a pool, and one of them is Supply and Demand. It seems like lots of folks rolled over their vacation budgets from the last two years (during the pandemic) into putting in a pool at home. The demand for pools is so high that prices have definitely gone up. Where you live can also affect the price of a pool installation. In warm-weather areas, where pools are common and get lots of use throughout the year, there are more companies to install them. More competition = lower prices.
We have a general contractor for the backyard. There’s a particular pool company that our contractor trusts and works with all the time. We eagerly took his recommendation, and there’s synergy with the whole project.
The quote we got for the pool was $148,000. Our pool is 20×36 and goes to 6′ deep. That includes permits and plans, demolition, digging, labor, the concrete shell, all of the plumbing, a filter system, a maintenance kit, a heater, pool pumps, umbrella sleeves, a pebble finish, steps into the pool, waterline tile, travertine coping, a hot tub, a tanning ledge, pool lighting, a hard cover, and even salt water to fill it up.
There are a few different types of in-ground pools — fiberglass, vinyl, and concrete — and then there are various finishes. Ours will be concrete (gunite) — 20′ x 36′ 8″. It’ll be 3.5 ft to 6 ft, estimated to hold 19,000 gallons.
The whole project is slated to take 20 weeks. We put $7,000 down to get started. After the digging was done, we paid another $50,000. We’ll pay the balance when it’s done. Most of the pool will be done by March. That’s when the landscapers will start the rest of the yard (pavers, grass…) so that it’s not a mud pit when it’s time to fill the pool :)
This pool comes with a 25-year warranty, and that seems like a nice long time. But if we hadn’t just sold our home, I can imagine saving for years for a purchase like this. I’m also still thoroughly confused as to how Clark Griswold, in Christmas Vacation, said he was going to use his Christmas bonus to put in a pool! (Haha)
Have you put in a pool? How much did it cost? If you’re willing to share in comments, we’d love for this to serve as a forum so that we can all further educate ourselves on budgeting for a purchase like this. We know the price fluctuates a lot, based on location, so tell us where you’re from, too!
How We’re Budgeting For It
We don’t think of a budget as restrictive. Our budget actually gives us permission to spend money on the things that matter the most to us. I’ve always been a huge proponent of this: Whether you’re putting in a pool or you’re redecorating your powder bath, the first question is “What’s your budget?”. Some people think a budget means “I can’t spend freely.” It’s just the opposite. You GET to spend that money on exactly what you want.
Because we budgeted for the pool, we have held off on buying lots new furniture the past several months and renovating the primary bathroom this year. Right now, our dollars are just assigned elsewhere. We had no idea how much an inground pool cost, so admittedly, we had to shift funds around between our goals after we got a quote.
Before we were setting budgets, I felt like I had to buy the cheapest of everything. Then the project comes off really lackluster. Realistically, if you set a budget — say, $500 — on redecorating a room, you get to spend ALL of that money on your project. You could “splurge” on the rug you always wanted and then use the rest of the money on fun finishing touches. Sometimes I can make a bigger impact in a room if I buy three things for $500, rather than 10 things for $50 each.
When we start working towards a goal, like the pool, one of the first things we do is create a line item in our budget. (below is a sample from YNAB)
Basically, we identify how much money we think we’re going to need, and by when. Then, we set that up in YNAB as a goal, and it shows us a plan to actualize that goal. Because the pool costs more than we thought, we started shifting things around to afford it this year. I love that this is a flexible plan that doesn’t make me feel bad or guilty. It’s about looking ahead and actually making progress.
This speaks to our project calendar, too. Listing out our projects in YNAB allows us to see where the spending is going to happen and when. This is how we could see that there wasn’t enough money left in our project budget to also do the bathroom this year. And that’s okay! We have all of the peace of mind (and excitement) about budgeting for that next year.
Now, obviously our job is unique in that we can make money by spending money on projects. It’s a bit of a brain-bender when we put it like that, but as content creators, some of our projects are sponsored. We make it a point to budget for the entire cost of the project, regardless, and if a portion of a project is sponsored — we gleefully reallocate funds toward a new or different goal.
Maybe you can relate to this if you’re a freelancer or a small business owner? If your income fluctuates month to month, YNAB is a great tool to help you plan for your goals by chunking out the funds so the money is where you need when you need it.
I think a lot of us consider money a blocker when it comes to accomplishing certain goals, and one of the things I’ve learned is that having a clear financial picture really is the first step in accomplishing any goal, big or small.
YNAB’s Four Rules (Chris and I swear by these):
1. Give Every Dollar a Job. Know exactly how you want to spend the money you have available — and only the money you have right now — before you spend a dime. This helps ensure that you have money for the things that matter most to you — whatever it might be. Think of your money as working for you and don’t let it sit around idle.
2. Embrace Your True Expenses. Figure out what you really spend and treat those infrequent expenses (like twice-a-year car insurance or replacing your laptop every two years) like monthly expenses in your monthly budget. Breaking big or uncommon
expenses down means you won’t be surprised by them.
3. Roll With the Punches. Accept that things change and your budget needs to be flexible. You won’t spend the same amount on all categories every month, so be prepared to move money around. Moving money around doesn’t mean you are budgeting wrong, it
means you are actually budgeting!
4. Age Your Money. Break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle by aiming to reach the point of using the money you earned last month to pay this month’s expenses. This margin will create more peace of mind than you can even imagine.
One of my favorite things about budgeting with YNAB is that whenever we get a bonus or any “unexpected” money (the sale of our house, in this case), we already have a category for where that money is going. At first, it could feel like, “Aw, man — all of this money is already spent.” So make a category for fun, too! This could be dinners out or makeup hauls or your “boot budget” — whatever you enjoy spending money on.
I feel like budgeting comes naturally when planning for a vacation. Like — it’s going to cost $4,000, and it’s happening this summer. How much do we need to save every month? Vacations are something we’re used to budgeting for ahead of time. But I’ve heard of lots of people use YNAB to budget for Christmas. Imagine paying yourself $100/month for Christmas and then going on a festive gift-buying spree in December!
What are you budgeting for this year?
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Your pool turned out gorgeous. I’m working on a similar design for ours and was wondering what color finish you went with and what water line tile? Feel like this is the most difficult decision to make…. THANKS so much!
We went with hybrid plaster (with quartz and mini pebble) in the color “Sharkskin.”
It’s a great resource for managing pool expenses effectively! The transparency in your process is incredibly helpful for anyone planning a similar project.
We built our pool 15 x 50 a few years ago, very similar cost and set up as yours, gunnite, travertine coping, hot tub etc etc. A huge expense was the travertine pavers/labor for the pool deck. That was almost as much as the pool! Be sure to automate everything to your phone.
Hi,
We live in the western suburbs in Chicago. We built our pool in the summer of 2020. Ours cost around $130k plus another $25k for landscaping and hardscape. It’s gunite and goes from 3.5-7.5 ft with a built-in hot tub.
I’m on Long Island, NY. We got a quote in 2020… along with everyone else. It was $36,500 for a 14×24 vinyl-lined pool. That only included the excavation, pool and salt water filter. It didn’t include the permit or pavers. We ended up shelving the idea. For only three months of usage, we’d rather put our money somewhere else.