Hey everyone! Happy Friday. Today, I have another one of my “short” question posts about whether you should have an emergency fund or pay off debt, mainly because I am extremely nosey. I'm assuming all of you are nosey too.
One of the reasons why it's taking us a little bit longer to pay off my $38,000 in student loans is because I refuse to touch our emergency fund. I am an extreme worrier and am always afraid that something may happen. We have about 5 months of expenses in our emergency fund (could last a lot longer if we cut things out of our budget), and I want to keep it that way.
Luckily, my student loans will be gone this month, so I don't really have to worry about this question anymore, but I know that others have questioned what they should do.
Now, why don't I want to touch our EF? Well, our EF covers many, many things. While I don't think that a job loss would kill us, a combination of many things happening would. My job is stable, but what if all of my freelancing went down the tank, there was a job loss, something bad happened to the house AND something happened to the dogs?
Well, this is where our emergency fund comes into place. Some of you might be thinking “oh, all of that wouldn't happen in one month.” But, what if it does? Our EF gives us peace of mind! When one thing goes wrong, it always seems like everything else that could possibly go wrong, goes wrong also.
Some recommend that while you are paying off debt, that you keep just the bare minimum, such as $1,000 in your emergency fund. Others suggest that you build up your emergency fund FIRST and then pay off your debt.
What would or do you currently do – have an emergency fund or pay off debt? How much is in your emergency fund?
What does your emergency fund cover? Where do you keep it?
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james says
June 15, 2013 at 8:44 pmah… what emergency fund? i’m racking up the student loans as we speak! i should be about 45-50k in the hole after school, but more after grad school. my BF and i more than okay with living in an apartment to pay off our loans. i havent gotten this far yet in my planning, but we’re been talking about it and getting comfortable with the inevitable makes it easier to deal with when it finally happens, i think.
xx james
cantaloupe says
June 16, 2013 at 12:53 pmI have a few thousand in my savings fund. I have a huge amount of credit card debt, so every time I pay some of that off, I have that amount of my limit back, haha. Which I know is not the same thing, but it makes sense for me. I lost my job a year and a half ago, but I didn’t even touch my savings before I found a new one. And I lived with other people for free until then. I surprised myself with how good at mooching and stretching a dollar and using my connections to find a new job/gig/whatever I am.
Gen Y says
June 16, 2013 at 2:05 pmI current have a ton of student debt, and I just don’t think EF is my priority right now. So I consider the 1.5K I keep in my chequing account to waive bank fees my EF.
Gajizmo says
June 16, 2013 at 3:32 pmConsidering there are no new big algorithm updates coming up for a few months, your blog’s income is clear. And since you’ve survived so many in the past, there is no reason to think anything would have a significant impact on your current earnings. And like you said, your job is stable. I would use 100% of the cash earning from your blog to just pay off any debt you have, excluding your mortgage. Considering you are in a high tax bracket, you need every deduction you can get.
KC @ genxfinance says
June 17, 2013 at 12:30 amI’d probably save for an emergency fund just to have a little peace of mind. I doesn’t have to be much so that I can still continue paying my debt. but I also agree that it may be a personal choice. Others would feel better if they can ay their debt first.
Simon Halls says
June 17, 2013 at 9:16 amI do believe that paying off debt is always the best way to utilise spare funds or emergency funds. Within reason of course… do set something aside for emergencies.
Firstly, paying off debt is a great mindset to get into and secondly, you’ll be extremely glad that debts are at a minimum when in retirement.
Julie says
June 17, 2013 at 2:35 pmAs someone of the “be prepared” mindset, my advice is save for an emergency fund first, then pay off debt…although when we had huge amount of debt ($50K) we didn’t have much of an emergency fund because all our money went to keeping our head above water. So I totally get how it might be difficult to save an emergency fund when you are in debt.
Now that we are debt free, we keep an emergency fund of 1-year of living expenses. More than the recommended amount but we’ve been noticing that it can take people longer to find a job and the last thing we want is to go back to being in huge debt. No way!
David Smith @ PBC says
June 17, 2013 at 8:13 pmWhat does the emergency fund really cover? Hospitalization perhaps or some form of expenses which is really very important. Well, the amount that should be in our fund actually depends on us. the important things is to have money earmarked for such contingencies.
Ashley @ Saving Money in your Twenties says
June 17, 2013 at 8:20 pmI work for the federal government and my job is fairly stable (knock on wood) so I’m not too worried about losing my job. So I only keep a couple months of living expenses- the bare bones minimum living expenses- in my emergency fund. I want to build it up a bit more for those “just in case” moments, though 🙂
Whatever makes you feel comfortable is the right answer. My boyfriend just paid off the rest of his student loan and almost wiped out all his accounts in the process. Instead of being super excited about being done with loan repayments, now he’s a little nervous about his low cash balance! Not exactly the feelings you want to have after making that last payment… 😉
jim says
June 17, 2013 at 9:17 pmGosh, guys/gals. After reading this blog and the responses to it, I, frankly, am just shaking my head. Lose the over inflated EF and pay those damn bills off – now! Have a little faith. You’re young – if shit happens you’ll figure out a way to survive and once you’ve got those damn bills paid off, you’ll have more than enough for an EF. Seriously, has my generation scared you so badly that you’ve got no faith in yourselves, this country, whatever? Wow! If you had ANY idea of how “no EF” prior generations lived with, you’d probably seriously stroke out. Suck it up – trust a little. Lose the damn debt – now! And you’ll be fine.
Becky says
June 20, 2013 at 1:20 amI am just getting started on budgeting and getting our family finances in better shape, thanks to a great book by Usiere Uko titled, “Practical Steps to Financial Freedom and Independence: Your Road Map to Exiting the Rat Race and Living Your Dreams-” it has changed our lives. I have really valued the comments made here and will ponder them to figure out what is best for my family… it is a tough decision. Thank you for putting your blog out here for people to be able to discuss and learn more about different financial situations.
http://www.financialfreedominspiration.com/
thepotatohead says
June 22, 2013 at 12:12 amI focused on paying off my credit card debt first, which I just finished at the end of may. Woot! I’m now building uo my emergency fund to at least 3 months worth of expenses. Once that’s reached I’m probably gonna focus everything at my other debts and use a snowball method.
Kelli says
August 9, 2013 at 2:23 amWe currently have $1200 in our EF. I recently started having 10% of my checks go into the EF, and we just broke $1000! I was very excited about that, but now I’m wondering… should anything in excess of $1000 go to credit card debt? I’m pretty embarrassed to say we currently have about $4k in credit card debt… never thought that would happen to me. Some of it is due to us paying for my husbands grad school, and we are waiting on student loans to pay for that portion (which of course is just more debt).
I think what we’ve decided is to really start budgeting more and working harder to pay off the credit cards- we can afford to pay more than we have been, and probably decide to keep the EF at $1200 and use anything above for debt just for now. Hopefully we can knock it out in about 6 months. For some reason $1200 makes me feel a lot safer than $1000 🙂 After we are debt free we will want to increase it to about $6000, but that might be awhile since I’m about to go back to school as well. It’s quite stressful to me, but my husband is always reminding me that when we are both out of school we will be making a LOT more money and should be able to pay the loans off quickly (I know for a fact people like Dave Ramsey would not approve of that mentality, but we think it’s a pretty safe risk considering our careers).
lolobunny says
February 20, 2016 at 11:18 pmWe have been prioritizing debt repayment, but we still contribute semi-monthly to our emergency fund for unexpected surprises. We are trying to eliminate some of our monthly expenses so we can put more towards our savings.