You know the feeling…you’re going along, doing your thing, and bam! - an unexpected expense pops up.
I had this happen to me once: I walked out of my office at the end of a long day of work and when I got to my car, I noticed I had a flat tire. I must have picked up a sharp object on my way to work and the tire slowly emptied throughout the day. In this instance, I knew what to do. I got out my jack and started to get to work on replacing the flat with the spare tire. Then, along came a coworker, a good samaritan, who helped me with the flat, and got me on my way faster than had I done it myself. To this day, I am grateful for the assistance!
I’m sure something like this has happened to you. When you get a flat tire, or your computer crashes, or your phone dies - what do you do? Random stuff happens when you least expect it.
So, what do you do?? If you’re like me, you try to find the quickest, most cost effective, way to solve the problem and get on with your life. The problem is: everything costs something; whether in time, effort, or cold, hard cash. As with my flat tire experience, I had to find time to shop for a new tire and have it replaced. I knew I couldn’t drive on the spare tire for too long!
If this happened to you tomorrow, would you be able to easily pay for an auto repair at the drop of a hat? Do you have enough cash in an emergency savings fund to make a minor home repair, pay a medical bill, or take a pet to the vet, if necessary? Or do you attempt to fix the problem yourself? Either way, there’s an expense involved - in utilizing your time or your money.
Do you make regular contributions to an emergency fund for these purposes? If you did, it would make these life experiences less daunting. Setting up an automatic draft from your main deposit account to an emergency savings account will set you up for success when it comes to handling life’s curveballs. Having that cushion of savings will give you the peace of mind of knowing you have options.
If you do find that you have to utilize your savings account for an emergency situation, don’t despair! This situation is exactly what you’ve been saving for, so you can handle the expense without having to take on credit card debt and paying an exorbitant interest rate. You planned ahead and you should be proud of that!
Keep up the good work and build that savings fund right back up. Stay positive. You can do this!
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