Emergency Fund

Experts recommend having three to sixth months of expenses saved in an accessible account for those inevitable emergencies that arise in life. Those ‘rainy days’ come in the form of unemployment, medical emergencies, car accidents and loss of vehicles, the demise of an appliance, etc. Sometimes it doesn’t just rain, it pours! How is your ‘rainy day’ fund doing? If saving three to sixth months of expenses seems beyond your current abilities – start somewhere. Make it your goal to have $1000 put away for an emergency – and remember it is only for true emergencies – not Christmas, birthdays, clothes, or whatever your current need or want is.

When that emergency happens, and you do have to use some of your ‘rainy day’ fund, it will be a blessing. You won’t have to use credit to fund your emergency and you will have more peace in your lives knowing that you can weather the storm. Think of it as your financial food storage and don’t forget to replenish it after use. Come up with a plan of how to save and build your fund (budgets are great tools for this) and DO IT.

A family in the ward recently experienced the blessings of having an emergency fund and being prepared for the future:

Several years ago we started a dedicated savings (emergency fund) by adding some tax money here, a bonus there, and $10/ month. When we paid off a bill, we increased the amount we saved each month.

Our family van died on a Friday. We had no money for payments on a used one. Since we had our emergency fund and had saved a little of our tax return for a shed, we knew we had a certain amount of money we could spend for a used van. It wasn’t much, so we took it to the Lord. We told the Lord we needed a safe vehicle and didn’t want to go into debt. We told the Lord the amount of money we had and asked him to guide us to find something reliable. We fasted on Sunday and by Monday we had a van. Between the van, inspection and licensing, it was the amount we told the Lord we had available. Because of our emergency fund, prayers and miracles, we were back on the road in 5 days.