start a six-month emergency savings fund

I’ve been working on paying off my debts for a couple of years now and I should be debt free by the end of the year. I’m so close and creditors are doing so many crazy things with interest rates and cutting credit that I’d rather continue to throw my money at my debts and get out of them. Emergency fund is the next thing on my financial list.

I need to do a budget and track spending to be sure of my goal, but informally it’s 10K. I am padding a bit, I think, but my car could die at any time, and I’m thinking I might use this for a house down payment, which means I’ll need to build up another emergency fund right away.

Well, my earlier goal was a 3 month emergency savings fund. Now I want to have 6 months. Would be nice and with the economy tanking, not a bad idea to have a longer term plan. I am the least senior person in my department, after all. Ok, I am really not worried about getting laid off, but it is within the realm of possibility.

Now I need to set a budget to determine what I really need for 6 months worth of expenses and how quickly I can get there. Saving is actually fun now that I have thousands of dollars to play with, not tens : )

I put $117 into savings yesterday, it was half of the prize money I won yesterday at Commerce Bank for driving up to the lobby with a red car!

I have read some advice about this goal, and it is recommended that whenever you get unexpected money you should put it directly into your emergency fund. Well, half is better than none. I used some of the other half to splurge on a couple of movies and snacks and I plan to give the rest to a relative.

I’ve got about 3 months in savings now. I hope I can keep it saved over the summer, but I don’t get paid again until August. Going to be difficult.

Ideally I would have $9000 in savings. But today I started with 4$90.

this one has just begun! $100 a month… The Total Money Makeover

This has been a goal of mine for a while. It’s a bit tricky when you’re a grad student living on peanuts, but I think it can be done. The tricky part is what to do over the summer when I don’t get paid (and can’t have a job because I’m doing research). I put 10% of each paycheck into savings, but I don’t have a six-month fund yet.

Well I did it!! I took the first step and set up an account for automatic withdrawl every month from my checkings account! Words can’t describe how good it feels to know i have money an in case of emergency!

:)