Yet again, my wife’s car has decided to start acting up. Just 7 months ago, the AC clutch decided to crap out, and now it appears the fuel pump may be going out. About a year ago, the pump started failing to prime when we turn the key to KOEO (key on, engine off), which is the position right before you crank it. Normally you’d hear a humming sound coming from the back of the car, but we wouldn’t hear it sometimes, indicating it wouldn’t prime. When this happened, the engine would just crank and crank, and never fire. The lack of firing was because of a lack of fuel, since the pump wouldn’t prime. It did it once in a while last winter, and then stopped in the summer. Now this winter it’s been doing it more and more. Usually if I messed with the fuel pump relay, it would prime and we’d be fine. Well, today, on the day my wife started her new job, the stupid thing wouldn’t start no matter what I did! She ended up taking my car to work while I thought I could get it running, but when I couldn’t after 20 minutes, I just walked to work in 20 degree weather. Luckily I only live two miles from work!
On my walk today, I got to thinking about how lucky we are to have an emergency savings account established, even if it’s not all that much. It’s currently sitting at around $800, but this would be way more than enough to fix the car, if I decide to take it in. Just the fact that we have that money sitting there waiting for what happened today takes what would have been a huge amount of stress, and throws it in the trash. This is the true value of having an emergency savings account. When you need it, and actually have it, it gives you peace of mind, which is completely priceless. I would much rather have that peace of mind, than have to put the bill on a credit card and worry about how I’ll pay it off. Stress is horrible, and is often a part of not having enough money to pay for things you need. Having an emergency account gives you a way to minimize the threat of stress.
When and if we do take money out for a repair, we will slowly replenish the money again as well. It’s something that gets built up over time, and so never really puts us into an uncomfortable position when it comes to money. For this reason alone, for peace of mind when unexpected bills come up, everyone should have an emergency savings account. Having a little more in there, unlike us, will give you more of a buffer, so if more than one emergency comes up, you’ll still be fine.
How many of you have an emergency account established, and if so, have you had to utilize it? Did it help to relieve the stress?
Photo by Kıvanç Niş
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
“On my walk today, I got to thinking about how lucky we are to have an emergency savings account established, even if it’s not all that much. ”
Methinks you have “lucky” confused with “great planning.” Yes, I realize that there are times when an emergency fund is not possible to come up with, but really, setting aside $800 for future emergencies isn’t “luck.” Congrats to you!
My husband’s position just got “eliminated” on Monday this week (while they search for someone who will do the same work for 2/3 the salary), on the very day we returned from vacation. Not a happy day, but I’ll have to say: due to our long-established emergency fund (aka good planning, not good “luck”), I can sleep well at night. My hope is, of course, not to have to touch the fund. Time will tell. But I am happy to know that we have time to figure new ways of earning money as a result of pre-planning (which also includes no debt except our mortgage).
Perhaps lucky to realize the value of great planning
. But yes I hear you on that.
It’s great to hear that your planning is paying off right now. It’s unfortunate about your husband’s job, hopefully he will be able to find something pretty quick.
You’re absolutely right about being lucky.. Lucky that you planned ahead for some type of disaster that might happen in the future. It’s the reason I’m slowly trying to work my way up to a $10,000 cash saving that I plan to just have lying around in case something happened as it did to you.
Keep up the savings, and please be lucky enough to plan for the future.
Thanks for the comment Prompt Retirement. $10,000 is a really healthy buffer!
If this happened to me, I would have just sold a few shares of stock at a nice little gain and used that money to pay for it and have some extra left over.
You should rephrase that to “if I had a nice little gain”.
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