Maintenance is part of the purchase people forget to budget.

The sticker is the entry fee, not the price. Service intervals, consumables, the specialist who is the only one who can touch it: these are known in advance by anyone who has owned one, and skipped by nearly everyone who is about to. Then the first bill arrives and feels like a betrayal rather than a schedule.

Add a maintenance line to any purchase over a certain size. Ten minutes of searching for the real annual cost will either confirm the decision or spare you from it. Either outcome is worth the ten minutes.