Emergencies

I started Dave Ramseys class the other night, Financial Peace University. The first class is about emergency savings. It is recommended you have a minimum $1000 in savings. We started doing this years ago. We opened a money market account and started having automatic withdrawals every month for our fund. One of the things Dave says in his teachings is that you will find when you have that fund you quit having emergencies. How true that is. Just recently our washer broke down and we needed a new one. Ours was almost 20 years old and the part alone was like $150. It just so happened the state was doing their rebates along with pg&e, and the city. We ended up paying a little less than half of the cost for that washer with the sale and rebates. The best news is we did not have to put it on credit, we were able to pay cash. By paying cash we avoided financing charges, and we were able to take advantage of a great deal. Once upon a time this would have been an emergency. There would have been no money to handle this and wait for the rebates but thanks to our emergency fund we were able to do this without it causing a financial crisis. The same thing has been true for car repairs most of the time. It doesn't always take care of everything, but it sure does handle most of lifes little emergencies. I can tell you right now I don't miss those financial crisis at all! If you don't already have an emergency fund, start one right away. Start putting money away no matter how small amount you can afford. Have yard sales, sell off unused items, do a little over time. Whatever you can do to get that fund going. Before you know it you will have your emergency fund and quit having emergencies!