Invisapeeps 2.0

dqm either · Don't Quote Me

Do you have more in your emergency fund than you need?

Forty-two · Guru

I have long term savings, a 401K, all other savings could be used in an emergency.

RichardInTN · I believe in I.D.I.C.

I don't have an "emergency fund". I probably should... but every time I try to save, The Wife manages to come up with some reason we NEED to spend money on something... and I (admittedly) suck at saying "No" to her. I need to work on that.

tigerlily · Guru

Our savings account is more of a combined emergency fund/money for big purchases type thing. I guess I would prefer to keep at least 6 months of expenses in there, but we don't actually have a set amount for it.

-- Edited by tigerlily on Monday 28th of January 2013 07:11:54 AM

Mischa · Loins of Joy

Yeah, I'm with Richard. I'm screwed.

RichardInTN · I believe in I.D.I.C.

Mischa wrote:
Yeah, I'm with Richard. I'm screwed.

Your wife manages to spend all your money???? Wow!... I never knew!

wink

Mischa · Loins of Joy

RichardInTN wrote:
Mischa wrote:
Yeah, I'm with Richard. I'm screwed.
Your wife manages to spend all your money???? Wow!... I never knew!

LOL!!!

Evil Stepmother · Guru

We have a couple of retirement funds, several savings/credit union accounts, & some investment accounts. The savings accounts are for emergency & big ticket items that come up throughout the year, such as taxes, insurance repair costs for the house or cars and medical bills for the pets.

dqm either · Don't Quote Me

That's exactly how we do it ES.

Retirement - Non liquid- added to bi weekly
Investments -Non liquid- provide additional cash flow monthly
Efund - Liquid- don't f*&king touch it!
Savings account for the anticipated expenses like Christmas, vacations and taxes and also for non regular stuff that comes up like car repairs and doctors or whatever. Liquid- added to bi weekly and raided from as needed.

There is different money for different purposes.

But I don't keep great big ole piles of cash liquid therefore my Efund is not very big and it's actually a point of pride when I can knock something off it. For instance heating fuel; I used to have to keep an additional $2,000 in that fund before we got a wood stove. But by purchasing the stove I eliminated the fuel bill and was able to reduce the Efund by that amount of fuel costs (hugely expensive) and replace it with the cost of wood (almost free). I'm always looking for ways to get it lower while my bff thinks in the opposite direction and is looking for ways to increase hers. Neither of us is trying to change each other's mind it's just facinates me how alike we are that in this respect we are complete opposites.

In my mind different money goes to different places to do different things and keeping money that should go towards investments (or savings or whatever) in the Efund just seems wrong. Like you're holding your money back from doing what it's supposed to be doing. LOL! That came out funny.

In some ways I'm like Richard's wife too. If money comes in I will FIND something to spend it on LMAO! Like right now, the IRS won't even process my return until the 30th and I'm already allocating. biggrin

Richard, if you died what would your wife do until the insurance came through?

If you got injured for a month or more what would she do? Does that not scare the crap out of her? Can you explain that you want something set aside just for her so that you have the peace of mind of knowing she'll be ok if you get hurt?

RichardInTN · I believe in I.D.I.C.

I don't know if it scares the crap out of her... but it sure does scare it out of me.

living revived · Senior Member

I would LIKE to have 6 mo. of expenses in savings, but getting there is going to take a very, very long time.

But until that's established, that and the saving account are one and the same. We actually have two savings accounts, one at our bank and one with ING for this purpose, but they're both pretty empty right now. I hate it. DH is also one who grew up living on credit cards, so he struggles some with the idea of having money in the bank and a want- if we have the money right now, we should be ok to get the want! He's done better when I explain my reasoning for putting the want off for a bit, but it's still his instinct.

dqm either · Don't Quote Me

RTL,

I think if I was like you and had no dependents I wouldn't worry as much.
If my lifestyle and lifespan was like yours my entire philosophy would probably change.

dqm either · Don't Quote Me

This is kind of a spin off/follow up question without making a new thread.

So the subject of money came up between with the bff again. We're really tight so it's not weird for us to talk about this sort of thing every now and again.

During our conversation I remembered something that she said to me last time about 'what if you need new tires' or some such and my response was 'that's not an emergency'

Ok so our recent conversation was sort of a continuation of what we were talking about before...

Emergencies.

She asked me what do I consider an emergency.

I said an emergency is something that you can't anticipate or plan for.
And she wanted to know an example.
I couldn't really think of one because if I could think of it then I'd plan for it.
She wanted to know if I meant like death.
And I said yes but I was lying to end the conversation. I don't mean death because DUH, everybody dies. It's not a surprise. I do have plans for that.

So my question to anyone who is willing to answer:

What do you consider an emergency?

I'll go first since I started this.

If I go crazy.

There, I said it.

Evil Stepmother · Guru

This is not an emergency, but certainly unexpected: My husband was burning some stuff in the yard and something in his pile of yard waste and debris was HIGHLY flammable. A fireball ignited the insulation on the power line to the barn. Now the power to the barn is weak and since it's our line we have to have it repaired. The guy the power company recommended is out of town for a few days, so I have no idea how much this is going to cost.

He was home alone at the time, unsupervised.

RichardInTN · I believe in I.D.I.C.

I think "emergency" is anything that's unexpected and doesn't give you time to prepare. It could be probably any of thousands of things that I WON'T or CAN'T think up... and that's what makes them emergencies.

Tires, for example. Yes, everyone knows that they wear out... but what about the "ran over a nail" (ergo not defective, so no warranty replacement) blowout after only having them for 5,000 miles? THAT'S an unexpected emergency.

dqm either · Don't Quote Me

I wasn't sure if I should be insulted by my friend's tires comment but tires are as good an example as any.

In my mind an emergency doesn't look like a tire. I'd rather take $10 from 10 other bills (or $5 from 10 bills two months in a row) rather than break into the emergency money.

Emergency to me looks like -- no money coming in for a month or more because someone is incapacitated physically, mentally or emotionally. If the someone is me that means my husband couldn't work and would need to take care of me and I would want to make sure everything else was taken care of so he could deal with whatever my issues were.

If the someone was my husband I'd need at least six months to find another one.

biggrin biggrin biggrin biggrin biggrin biggrin biggrin biggrin I'M JUST KIDDNG! biggrin biggrin biggrin biggrin biggrin biggrin biggrin biggrin biggrin biggrin

Sorry, this topic deals with one of my biggest fears and I was getting a little bit morbid for a second.
Joke, joke joke.

Ilumine · Member

When DH retired from the military (we were stationed overseas, so both of us would come back unemployed) we saved up enough liquid cash to cover a full years worth of expenses, to include our extravagances (cable and high speed Internet, etc) - but NOT including DHs retirement pay.

We both recognized that the odds of me finding a job in our location, that would be worth it after daycare expenses was pretty slim. That meant we wanted to be covered even if DH got a job.

We also have 2-3 months worth of cash (to cover our full living expenses) on hand in our safe. This started in Europe, where we would,buy euros when the dollar was stronger. Now that we live in a hurricane prone area, it just seemed smart.

dqm either · Don't Quote Me

their definitions of what is an emergency is would surely differ from mine.

Yes I know that's why I was asking. I want to open my mind more to see outside my own set of fears/boundaries to better understand where my friend is coming from.

Also to not be all huffy when she says something to me that I'm certain she didn't mean as an insult. But I could tell that I needed more exposure to different ways of thinking because my first reaction was sorta

double u. tee. eff.

If you know what I mean. Once you start thinking like that it's a clear indicator that you're missing something.

Aurora · Senior Member

I have three months of expenses, plus we set money aside for repairs (house and car) every paycheck. I consider the former my e-fund and the later normal expenses.

Aurora · Senior Member

RichardInTN wrote:
I think "emergency" is anything that's unexpected and doesn't give you time to prepare. It could be probably any of thousands of things that I WON'T or CAN'T think up... and that's what makes them emergencies.

Tires, for example. Yes, everyone knows that they wear out... but what about the "ran over a nail" (ergo not defective, so no warranty replacement) blowout after only having them for 5,000 miles? THAT'S an unexpected emergency.

Cars break, tires pop, that is normal. That is not an emergency, that is money you should be setting aside every month.