Building a Reserve for a Primary Residence?

[Kyle Josefiak]

This might be a dumb question, but the thought occurred to me the other day... obviously when investing in a rental property you factor in expenses like CapEx, Repairs, Vacancy, Prop Management and others. Being someone who has always compartmentalize my finances I was wondering if it was smart to pretend I was my own renter and pay myself monthly into a reserve, mainly the CapEx and Repairs percentage that I would apply to an investment property. That way when the time came to spend money on my PR I would hopefully have most, if not all, of the funds already set aside.

I'll mention, my wife and I plan to live in our home for the next 8-10 years and start our family here. There aren't any major things on the house that will need attention, at least in the next ~5 years. I'll also mention my financial planning thus far has set me down the path of having an emergency fund (~6 months expenses), vehicle repair fund, vacation fund and even general savings fund, all of which a portion of my biweekly paychecks direct deposit into.

This probably all comes down to personal preference but I guess my main question is this. Does it make sense to set aside cash monthly into all of these different savings funds, including a PR reserve, to account for future expenses, or is that capital better used elsewhere?

I guess I'm just looking to learn of other people's strategies for financial planning.