Lesson Learned - Have An Emergency Fund
I have learned a very valuable lesson this week on why you should have an Emergency Fund (or, in my case, a FU Fund) and how important they are.
I was informed on Friday afternoon that the company I work for will be cutting back on staff to save money. Despite my own views of their knee-jerk reactions to a slowing economy and the fact that they still made over $500 million in profits last financial year (it was just less than expected), I have to face up to reality that the job I have and love may be taken from me.
Luckily I will not lose my job completely, but I may end up in a position that I hate. That is where the FU Fund comes in.
If I had enough in my FU Fund I would be worrying less and, if I was bundled off to a position I hated, I could simply tell them to shove their job and take my time in finding a new one.
My FU Fund sits at a paltry $800 - not nearly enough to tell them to go and jump if I am not kept in my current role. I do have other savings but it is not something that I want to dip into if I can help it.
This could all be a storm in a tea cup however - I may be kept on in my current role, or I may like any new role they assign to me - but it would make me feel much better if I had the funds to have a nice safety cushion in case of that worst case scenario.
But the lesson has been learned: once this is all over, I will be funneling as much as I can into my FU Fund.
Have you ever considered having an Emergency or FU Fund?
Image credit: Claire L. Evans
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Comments
Thanks for the comment, Shimmy. How could you not put money into something so funny as the FU Fund? :)
Don’t get disheartened with the slowness of your saving. One trick I use is to not look at the total very often. Just set up an automatic transfer into your FU Fund and leave it be - after a while you will surprised just how much you have in there!
Good luck.
Russ
That’s awesome — I thought I was the only one that called their emergency stash the FU Fund.
One of my New Years goals was to have four months of an eight month living expenses fund stashed away before the year’s end. So far I’m still on track — I take a fixed amount out of each paycheck — but it’s frustrating to see it grow so slowly.