have a 3 month emergency fund

I know how important this is. I think I wrapped up getting a second job. Hopefully, I just have to do the paperwork. Now I can start saving a bit each month. Damn, it is hard to get ahead as a single parent. Cost of living is high here in the Bay Area. Well this will be a lot easier when Jen arrives.

I made it to $5000 after four months of work at my new job!! It is easy now that I’m making a “real” salary. I’ve given myself permission to spend about $2K on gear (that I’ve wanted for years) and have taken some great trips. Now it’s time to buckle down, make a budget, and payoff those loans. Can I pay my loans and buy a house by 2013 – five years from now?

I think I might still add a couple thousand to savings so I can have a realistic 6 month cushion based on my budget. Need to figure out the budget first.

Just bought a house and need to rebuild the e-fund. We raided it for a down payment and now I’m feeling a little on the edge.
Our goal is $5k by New Years, which is possible if we focus and don’t travel.

Actually I want 6 months so that if one of us loses a job we can get by on one salary (unemployment not included) for 6-9 months. You never know in this economy. I have the feeling the tough job market will drag on for a couple years.

Time to buckle down

Would like to have some more resources behind us, just in case!

We paid off my husband’s student loan today (YAY!!!!), so we’ve taken a portion of what we used to pay to that and upped our monthly contribution to the emergency fund. Slowly but surely we’re getting there.

I have probably made half the money over the summer that i would normally make during the school year. It annoys me that people think I’m so well suited for this job, but I hate the fluctuation, and I get so annoyed with how humans sometimes run their families.

Anyway, so It’s gonna take me another 6 months, to build back up to where I was at the end of the school year. What a bummer. I wish I could just stop wishing for things.

I am grateful that I have had the buffer, though. I’m not “broke”. I just don’t feel like I have the sort of savings I want.

How will I make any progress acquiring my other financial goals, when I can’t even keep my savings above 2,000?

a new (newer than my 1998 jetta that has something wrong with it every month) car? not a chance.

How do I improve my credit enough so that I might one day own a house, when I can’t make enough money to pay myself, much less pay down student loans or any extraneous collections from the past?

Will I always have this worry on me?

I want to go back to school, but I’m between a rock and a hard place.

It was my intention to move the entire chunk of our stimulus check into the emergency fund (of course we got it in late May and now it’s almost August! I’ve been slacking.) Unfortunately I got rear-ended a few weeks ago, and we had to front the deductible. So for now I’ve moved $500 into the emergency fund. The rest will have to wait until we get reimbursed by the insurance company.

$7,200 is what we’d need. That seems like a lot of money! And that’s just what we actually bring home. If we were to do before taxes, insurance, etc….Gulp.

My yearly cost-of-living raise went into effect on July 1, so I bumped up our monthly automatic savings transfer from $100 to $200. Should help us reach our goal a bit faster.

I’ve keep the automatic transfers of $100 per month to my savings, even through the tight times of a separation and related move. Now I have a “real job” so I’m going to complete this goal first, then payoff those student loans. Total savings now $745.71! I didn’t know when I started this if I could afford to save before getting a better job. Now I’m so glad I’m already this far along and I didn’t even miss the money!