I live, write, and garden in the PNW with my husband of 27 years, disabled daughter, college-aged son, and my 84-year-old mother. We have paid off $250,000.00 worth of debt (if you include the interest) in the last fifteen years and as of 6/12/2020 are 100% DEBT FREE!!!!Today is payday and I was able to add $1000 to the Emergency Fund. This is coming out of the overtime DH worked. I also had $40 left from my $100 cash from last week so I added that to the coin jar money in my EF envelope. That made it total $69.50 so I will deposit that today, too. And yesterday was the weekly $10 auto deposit to savings that I've had for the past decade or so.
$3902.12 Previous EF Balance
+1000.00 Deposit
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$4902.12 New EF Balance
+__69.50 Coin Jar Money
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$4971.62 New EF Balance
+__10.00 Weekly Auto deposit
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$4981.62 New EF Balance
That leaves me with $18.38 to come up with for the rest of the month to hit my goal of $5000 for June. Since there are two more auto deposits of $10 each this month, there will be no problem with hitting that. I'm excited. $5000 is such a nice number.
Emergency Fund Update--Almost at $5000
June 14th, 2013 at 08:16 pm
June 14th, 2013 at 08:20 pm 1371241208
June 14th, 2013 at 08:38 pm 1371242327
I always felt that the "baby emergency fund" concept should really be more like $5,000. I am not sure if I have ever had a smaller emergency fund as an adult. $5,000 seemd to do the job well. (& to be clear, I mean for a baby emergency fund. Not that it's going to stretch very far in a catastrophe. That is what the bigger emergency fund is for. I think $5k is good for staying out of debt. YMMV).
June 14th, 2013 at 08:42 pm 1371242570
June 14th, 2013 at 10:04 pm 1371247446
June 14th, 2013 at 10:49 pm 1371250142
June 15th, 2013 at 06:11 am 1371276700
MM--I feel a lot more secure with $5000 in the EF. $1000 about covers having to replace the tires on the van or the insurance deductible or a week at a hotel, but anything more serious than that and I'm sure credit cards would come into play for most people. $5000 would cover a whole lot more of an emergency. Now I need to head for the longer-term EF category of $30,000. I ultimately want double that, but that will take years.
Jenn--All those bits really do add up. It is amazing how quickly they do. It does feel good.
June 15th, 2013 at 11:49 am 1371296999