Money Matters Monday - An Emergency Fund

It's been a few days since I posted the last installment of my mini-series on becoming your family's chief financial officer. I began this series with the intent on completing in a week or so but as I have been writing I've decided to change money matters to Monday because well...it sounds cool...Money Matters Monday. Say it a few times and you'll think it's cool too!

So continuing on...

Have you had some unexpected emergency come up like your car breaking down or hot water heater quit working only to realize you don't have enough money in your budget to cover the expense to fix your problem? We have. It's not fun.

If you've never heard of Dave Ramsey, then right this moment you need to click over to his website and take a look around. He has created a system to help you save money, pay off debt and keep it off, and build financial wealth. This process is done in seven baby steps to make it easy for you. Anyone can follow it!

Step one on this system is creating an emergency fund.

Here's what Dave Says:

"An emergency fund is for those unexpected events in life that you can’t plan for: the loss of a job, an unexpected pregnancy, a faulty car transmission, and the list goes on and on. It’s not a matter of if these events will happen; it’s simply a matter of when they will happen."

So knowing that an emergency will happen at some time should be enough to get us all saving money to cover whatever might happen. It's better to be prepared than to have to create more debt for our family.

You may ask if every.single.family needs an emergency fund and my answer is yes. Why? Again, because an emergency can happen to anyone at any time. Now where should you keep it? You're best bet would be to keep it in a high-interest savings account that has no penalties for withdrawals. You want to be able to access the money in case you really need it. Having this money set aside will benefit your family in so many ways should something happen!

Now, you might be sitting there thinking you don't have any idea how you could possibly save any money right now. The reason might be that you are on a strict budget, have little income to support your needs, or you just don't know how to find that money. The answer to this problem is easy too. There are many ways to grow your emergency fund from nothing.

Ways to grow your emergency fund:

1. Cut all debt payments to bare minimum. Take that extra money whether it is $5 or $50 and add it to your fund now. Do this each month until you have your $1000.

2. Do you eat out a lot? Well stop now! Figure out how much you've been spending a week and next week add that amount to your fund...and continue until your reach your goal.

3. Have spare change in a tin can? Cash it in. Add it to your fund.

4. Do you have stuff sitting around your house that you can sell? Have a garage sale or list the items online on sites such as Craigslist or Ebay. When your items sell add every bit of the money to your fund.

5. Take on some odd-jobs. Babysit for friends, clean houses, weed yards -anything you can do. Then add that money to your fund.

6. Are there some bills that are unnecessary that you could cut? Cable, land line phone, gym membership...etc? If so, cancel immediately and add that saved money to your fund.


You see, it's not that difficult to find some extra money to grow your emergency fund. It just takes a little bit of thought and action to see results. This step might take you a month or six months but try to complete it as soon as possible so you can move on to other things!

Do you have any creative ideas to save money for your emergency fun?? Share your ideas and I'll update this post with them!!

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