What have you spent your EF on?

[corn18]

I was going back through the last 4 years looking at what I have spent our EF money on.

1. Car accident repair
2. Emergency vet visits for animals
3. ER visits for me
4. Plane tickets for wife when her dad had cancer and died
5. House air conditioner repair
6. New water heater

And the ones that made me giggle (now):

7. New TV because I broke the perfectly good one trying to fix it
8. New iMac because I broke the perfectly good one trying to fix it

Overall, everything seemed to fit the requirement for an "emergency". Except maybe 7 & 8.

I pretty much cash flow all of this, but I keep track of what I think is emergency spending in my budget spreadsheet.

[msomnipotent]

New furnace a few winters ago and some went towards a car. I tried to budget everything with regular cash flow, but I think I might dip in for my daughter's mouth and the dog. I'm hoping I have all the orthodontic charges paid for this year, but something always pops up.

[scfr]

We've dipped in to our EF only twice, both in the past 12 years, and both related to natural disasters. The first time was extra expenses incurred during an extended power outage in the winter (batteries, candles, increased food spending). The second time was the deductible for roof replacement following a hail storm.

Other irregular expenses we have covered in advance by building up cushions in certain categories (home repair & replacement, pet, medical/dental/vision, car repair, sports & leisure*).

*Recently traveled to visit an ill family member, utilizing cc rewards, hotel points, and a bit of the "sports & leisure" budget (includes travel).

The main thing I have used my EF for is sleeping well at night! I know we've been pretty fortunate so far in that we haven't experienced the compounded disasters that many have faced (house and place of employment both burn down, extreme medical issues causing not only increased cost but also job loss, etc.)

Your TV & computer stories made me laugh. We have a similar story with a toilet.

[rennigade]

Am I the only one who doesnt have an "EF" per se? I have a standard checking account and online savings account. I never had a dedicated "emergency fund."

Do I think its good to have a dedicated EF...yes...absolutely. I just never overspent so I never had to force myself to have 6 or 12 months of expenses saved up. We were fortunate enough to always been in that situation.

As for random emergency fixes...I just had a flat tire...side wall sliced. I saved a tire with a lot of tread when I had all 4 replaced. That one was a previous replacement for a flat tire we couldnt repair. I had walmart throw that on for me...$23 out the door.

[Gailete]

We've dipped in to our EF only twice, both in the past 12 years, and both related to natural disasters. The first time was extra expenses incurred during an extended power outage in the winter (batteries, candles, increased food spending). The second time was the deductible for roof replacement following a hail storm.

Other irregular expenses we have covered in advance by building up cushions in certain categories (home repair & replacement, pet, medical/dental/vision, car repair, sports & leisure*).

*Recently traveled to visit an ill family member, utilizing cc rewards, hotel points, and a bit of the "sports & leisure" budget (includes travel).

The main thing I have used my EF for is sleeping well at night! I know we've been pretty fortunate so far in that we haven't experienced the compounded disasters that many have faced (house and place of employment both burn down, extreme medical issues causing not only increased cost but also job loss, etc.)

Your TV & computer stories made me laugh. We have a similar story with a toilet.

I think one of the big reasons that you don't have the disasters that others do is because like a good boy scout you are prepared. Over my lifetime the couples that seem to experience the most 'disasters' have them because they are just eeking by paycheck to paycheck. So nothing to handle even the tiniest things will set them off. I still remember a disaster prone friend, never had enough money, but on Easter Sunday her daughters always had a new dress, a new spring coat and new hats. This was how she grew up and whether or not they could afford it her kids got this stuff. My mom if she could, would make my sister and myself a new dress if she could afford the fabric. But as my boys were growing up, if we didn't have the money for new clothes for the big holidays, they went without, but mind you, they were never naked!

It is the momentum of needing something like a tank of gas to get to work and no money for it, and then you drop and break the babies medicine, etc. all pretty small in themselves, and then you get a flat tire that needs a new tire, bigger disaster. You wonder if someone came along and paid off all these peoples bills, and tucked $1K in an EF for them, how soon they would be into diaster mode again? It is how they live.

[Gailete]

Am I the only one who doesnt have an "EF" per se? I have a standard checking account and online savings account. I never had a dedicated "emergency fund."

Do I think its good to have a dedicated EF...yes...absolutely. I just never overspent so I never had to force myself to have 6 or 12 months of expenses saved up. We were fortunate enough to always been in that situation.

As for random emergency fixes...I just had a flat tire...side wall sliced. I saved a tire with a lot of tread when I had all 4 replaced. That one was a previous replacement for a flat tire we couldnt repair. I had walmart throw that on for me...$23 out the door.

We don't have an EF per se either, but I I have a lot of savings accounts that when i mentioned them before, I heard about and folks here thought I saw nuts. LOL. But they are in essence my EF, Because we are self employed and we don't have taxes taken out of our house loan, I have a tax account. Two, one for each business, I have a savings account for those miraculous months when we have some extra. I could go on, but because of self-employment we can go long stretches without income from hubby, so I do tuck money away for bills that are coming up. The income I get for my on line business, helps with more immediate expenses, and until the US goes broke and takes SS with it, I already get a monthly check.

I know it probably sounds weird, but once I tuck money into a savings account, I resist in every way possible to tap it for anything, even the for the things I have set it aside for! But I am getting better with that as living a self-employeed life has taken a whole lot of getting used to after most of my life with weekly or bi-weekly paychecks. So I try to pay on any credit card bills as soon as I have at least some of the money earned, rounding up each payment. Once of the greatest things for people that have bills with interest on them, is having internet banking, where you can pay when you want to, don't have to wait for a due date, even if you pay something, ahead of time, you are chipping away at the bill. And with bank loans you can see how extra payments can dissolve the bill.

[kork13]

The main thing I have used my EF for is sleeping well at night! I know we've been pretty fortunate so far in that we haven't experienced the compounded disasters that many have faced (house and place of employment both burn down, extreme medical issues causing not only increased cost but also job loss, etc.)

This is pretty much the case for us too. For anything that would theoretically be covered by an energy fund (plane tickets for family deaths, home repairs, etc), I have mostly been able to cash flow the expense (via floating the cost on our credit card until the next month). The extra month gave me time to trim costs elsewhere, or (most often) reduce ongoing savings in order to finance the expense. I think that's one reason that I've transitioned 95% of our EF to I-Bonds. I just don't need our EF to be immediately available. With that said, even though I've never really tapped into our EF, I still wholeheartedly believe in the need to have one. I've just never had a catastrophic emergency (-ies)... I'm sure at some point, my luck will run out, and I'll need that cash. I just haven't yet.

[bennkar]

Am I the only one who doesnt have an "EF" per se? I have a standard checking account and online savings account. I never had a dedicated "emergency fund."

Do I think its good to have a dedicated EF...yes...absolutely. I just never overspent so I never had to force myself to have 6 or 12 months of expenses saved up. We were fortunate enough to always been in that situation.

I don't have a dedicated EF either, though looking at my savings right now... yeah it is probably the equivalent of 12+ months of expenses (so I guess you could call my savings an EF). In the past 20 years I can't think of anything I needed an emergency fund for. Most large expenses I have been able to use a credit card to pay for, and then pay it off before I got charged any interest. Even getting my car back in 2011, I had just gotten in the mail a 0% / $0 fee check offer for 12 months (don't pay it off by then? You get back charged 19% interest ) I made sure to pay it off before charges occurred.

[disneysteve]

This is always an interesting question. We also don't have a dedicated EF so it's always a little hard to say what came out of the EF.

For example, we keep a surplus of a few thousand in our checking account. So if most months our balance doesn't drop below $4,000 and one month it dipped down to $3,000, does that mean we took $1,000 out of our EF? I'm not really sure how to answer that.

Did we have any larger one-time expenses in the past few years? Definitely. We replaced our air conditioner, our furnace, our hot water heater, and our refrigerator within the past 3 years. But none of those things are actually emergencies. We know they all have a limited lifespan and we had them for many years. My wife made 2 round trips to Florida to help care for a sick relative. We had a couple of costly car repairs.

There wasn't anything that was an outright emergency like a job loss, natural disaster, or medical incident. And we've always been able to pretty quickly replenish whatever got spent out of cash flow.

[msomnipotent]

I guess it just a matter of how you define everything. Our EF has the money for our property taxes and emergencies, and now all the money we were going to use as a down payment. I just put everything into the highest interest paying account I could find. I suppose I could call it the "non-frivolous, high expense items account that should only be accessed when there isn't enough money in checking and we really need it".

Our checking account doesn't pay interest, so I only keep enough for normal bills, upcoming expected bills like insurance and HOA fees, and fun money. Everything else is transferred to the EF. Things like new tires and emergency supplies are normal items for me, so that comes out of checking. Even though we know we need a new roof sooner rather than later, it is coming out of the EF simply because I'm not passing up interest on $15,000 to $20,000.

[disneysteve]

I suppose I could call it the "non-frivolous, high expense items account that should only be accessed when there isn't enough money in checking and we really need it".

I like that, though in our case, I would also include some occasional "frivolous" stuff. For example, we spent quite a bit more than usual on travel last year for a variety of reasons and there wasn't always enough in the checking account to pay the bill so some money did get moved out of other accounts.

[snafu]

Like others I have easily accessed money identified as 'savings' but not a designated EF. As a result of an 'emergency evacuation' experience several decades ago, I kept $ 200. cash in our small, home safe. As a result of the 2016 wildfire, I increased it to $500. [When electric fails, there is no access to bank machines or CCs].

I've $ 1K slush in our primary chequing account as it gives me free, banking services I use regularly. Over the years our primary 'savings' account has morphed into a sinking fund primarily derived by sweeping funds leftover in chequing at the end of each month. I track a basic spread sheet for sunk fund sums needed for intermittent obligations like annual insurance [home, vehicles], quarterly income tax, annual 1% home maintenance & travel].

When the sum exceeds it's annual requirement, the excess has been buying a specific ETF. Over the years I've tracked a chosen savings streams and made it a point to add that specific sum to push the ETF towards it next 100 unit purchase. Following 'The Life-Changing*Magic of Tidying Up' declutter was such a profound experience, I've a different criteria for what is purchased. *

[scfr]

Am I the only one who doesnt have an "EF" per se? I have a standard checking account and online savings account. I never had a dedicated "emergency fund."

Our funds are co-mingled, but the numbers are kept separate on paper. We have a designated EF, but not a dedicated account solely for that purpose.

Any system works, as long as you have a plan and the resources in place to cover the "life happens" moments, right?

[cypher1]

The most recent one was going to the ER on New Years eve, due to cutting myself while making dinner. After everything I ended up paying $723 for basically super gluing my cut. The only good thing was I got to use my HSA funds.

As for emergency repairs on car/house, I usually have funds dedicated for them. IE the only appliances original to my home are the washer/dryer (21yrs old), and the garage door motor.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I have no idea. We tend to just charge and not worry about most things. Very few things have happened that we've transferred money to pay off. I guess this means we probably don't need our crazy ef.