So, financial gurus are all about saving six to eight months of your expenses for an emergency fund. If I scrimped, I could get to that amount in five years—- and those are five years with some expected expenses (I expect my 11 year old car may crap out on me sometime in that time, and I’ll probably move again).

There is also something about keeping that much money sitting in a savings account with a pretty tiny interest rate that makes me uncomfortable.

Ultimately, my emergency fund goal is to have three months of emergency funds available immediately, with most of my savings in better investments than a savings account. I figure three months is a long enough time to free up some other of that money.

What may be obvious is that I neither have six months of emergency funds, nor three months of emergency funds. But this long term goal needs to start with the first, swallowable step. Hence: $1,000.