Enjoy this post written by my staff writer Jordann.

My emergency fund has gone through a bit of an evolution since I started it. At first it was non-existent.

I didn't have an emergency fund in University. Money was tight, and I was more concerned about having enough money for rent, than I was about putting money away for a rainy day.

That all came to a screeching halt when I got in a car accident in the Summer of 2011. I was fresh out of school when I totalled my husband's car and we didn't have any money to fall back on.

The month that followed was anything but smooth. We had to deal with replacing the totalled car and a dozen visits to the doctor as my broken wrist healed. I missed time from work, and we both felt the financial strain.

The Origins of my Emergency Fund

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This post is by my awesome staff writer Jordann. Enjoy!

When I decided that it was time to get out of my $38,000 in student and car loan debt, I knew that reducing my expenses was one of the key ways to free up enough cash flow to make this happen.

I was limited in my extra earning opportunities, so cutting expenses was the quickest and easiest way to achieve fast savings.

I made all of the usual cuts, things like no more cable, no hair cuts, no yoga classes. Those were all great ways to save money quickly, but I wanted more. So, I started doing some really weird things in order to save money. Not all of them panned out, but they were all, definitely an experience. Here are a few of them:

Permanent House Sitting

I've talked at length about how I live in a 400 sq. ft. cottage, but I've never explained how I came across this cottage. It's actually owned by a relative of mine, who has his own house elsewhere.

He asked us to babysit his cottage while he was away, which we happily agreed to – mostly because of the very, very reasonable rent. The only downside is that it's very rustic, and full of his furniture. Not many people I know would dain to live in this small, rough cottage full of someone else's stuff. The price is right though, so we're here to stay for the time being.

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When Fall hits, I get the urge to go back to school. I think it's the cooler weather that reminds me of the beginning of the school year.

Now that I'm out of university, I don't have any classes to enroll in, books to buy, or papers to write, but I still get the urge to improve myself in some way.

Fortunately, there are endless ways to indulge in a little self-improvement without going back to school, and I've taken advantage of a few of them in the past two falls.

These personal improvement strategies can do wonders for your budget – and some can even pay for themselves a few times over.

Improve Your Side Hustle Skills

For Christmas of 2011, I was lucky enough to receive an intro to photography course as a gift. I used it the following Fall. I was really excited to take this class since photography was a hobby of mine, and I really love taking photos.

What I didn't expect was to get interest from several friends and colleagues about doing some amateur photography for them. While I didn't build this out as a real side hustle, there was definitely potential there to develop photography as a second stream of income.

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Ah food. We need it to live, yet most of us consume way more than we actually need to survive. It eats up a significant portion of our take home pay and our spare time.

There are so many choices when it comes to how a household eats, one of which, is how much to spend on groceries.

Now, I'm of the opinion that having a refrigerator full of healthy, filling food is a great way to avoid costly dinners out with friends, so I tend to want to spend a little more than the average person on groceries. Does that mean my grocery bill breaks the bank?

Heck no! I budget $400 per month between my husband and myself, and that more than takes care of our cravings every month. We eat very well, for a pretty reasonable cost.

So, how much should you spend on groceries?

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