No one ever wants to think that something terrible might befall them or their family, or even their car, flat or home, but unfortunately, these things do happen. Many wind up in quite large amounts of debt, or even bankruptcy, simply because something that they were unprepared for happened, be it an illness, a car accident, or even a home repair disaster.
In most cases, insurance will cover the necessary damages, but not always, and that is where the concept of having an emergency fund comes into play. An emergency fund, also called a rainy day fund by some, is basically just as it sounds a stash of money which has been saved and is to be used in the event of an emergency.
Many people stockpile their emergency fund for things like sudden car repairs, say on the way to the office the brakes on your automobile start squeaking, unless you have planned for brake replacements, or have your rainy day fund in place, it could be quite difficult to just reach into the wallet and fork over hundreds of pounds for an unexpected issue. Home repair problems are another big source of uses for any emergency fund, a flooded shower, a termite infestation, a hole in the roof, are all things that can put any sort of emergency fund to use quickly.
And in this volatile economy, building up an emergency fund is an intelligent idea for if another deep market fluctuation occurs and jobs are made redundant, getting sacked, while certainly an unexpected disappointment, might not be quite as terrible if a few months mortgage were sitting in the rainy day fund.
So how to get started, right then, first things first, take a look at your budget and determine just how much funds you will be able to put away. Next, set up an automatic withdrawal from your account, preferably right at the same time you might receive each pay check, then you won’t even know the money was ever there. Set up these withdrawals each month, or even every two weeks. After six months or so of saving, you will be pleasantly surprised to find such a tidy sum sitting in your emergency fund.
The goal of this fund is really to never use it. Do not borrow from the emergency fund to go on holiday, or buy the family Christmas gifts, the funds in that account are only be used in case of an emergency. Once this fund is set up, you will be able to rest easily that if any unexpected crisis were to occur, you would be able to finance it with the money in your emergency fund (or at least partially finance it), and not skip much of a beat in your regular financial life. It is a piece of mind that is relatively painless to set up and get going.
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