Using Your Emergency Fund For Fun Emergencies

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Emergency funds are a must. They protect you from life’s unexpected expenses, keep you from going into debt for unplanned car repairs, medical bills, or home maintenance. While these statements are true, they may not motivate everyone to reduce their spending on fun things to prepare for not so fun things in the future. With that in mind, today I’m trying a different approach in motivating you to have an emergency fund. You see, an emergency fund can also be used to take advantage of opportunities for unplanned fun! Using The Emergency Fund For Fun A friend recently suggested we […] Read more »

4 Reasons I’ll Need An Emergency Fund This Year

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I vowed to beef up my emergency fund this year. This isn’t just a blind goal, there’s a reason behind this goal. There are actually several reasons it’s imperative I achieve this goal. Without a pumped up emergency fund, I may be facing a very difficult financial situation. Here are 4 reasons I absolutely must have a fat emergency fund in 2020: Water Softener Every now and then the salt tank fills too far and water drains out the overflow valve. That’s not supposed to happen. While it hasn’t happened in awhile, I’m just waiting for it to break down. […] Read more »

Public Service Announcement: You STILL Need an Emergency Fund

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Smart, savvy, financial blog readers like yourself are certainly conscious of the importance of an emergency fund. But, maybe it’s been awhile since you’ve dipped into yours. Maybe you’ve become a little desensitized from the effects of not having one. Today we at Enemy Of Debt are doing a public service announcement giving everyone a bit of a refresher as to the importance of the emergency fund. I saw my wife’s phone light up with a text message notification. The message was from our son, notifying us that the garage door would not go all the way up, and was […] Read more »

Trouble Starting An Emergency Fund? Try A Change Jar!

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The emergency fund is one of the fundamental tools needed for financial freedom. Without an emergency fund, any unexpected expense results in a financial crisis that could require some extreme measures to recover from. I know this from personal experience all too well. Once you have an emergency fund, keeping it going is easier because a person understands it’s true value. The problem is the initial startup of getting it going. It’s hard to change your spending habits to set aside money for those things that just pop up in life. It’s also hard to see money just sitting there […] Read more »

9 Tips For Creating Discipline With Money

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9 Tips For Creating Discipline With Money

I frequently get questions from my readers about how to resolve their various financial problems.  The questions range from not being able to save enough, to tackling huge amounts of debt, to how to stop living paycheck to paycheck. One of the common themes I’ve discovered in the hundreds of emails I’ve received, is that most of those readers tell me the root of their problem is a lack of discipline. Lack of Money is Not the Problem Learning discipline when it comes to money is not always easy, but it’s necessary if you want to get ahead financially.  Many […] Read more »

7 Awesome Ways to Accelerate Your Savings and Build Wealth

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Seven Awesome Ways to Accelerate Savings and Build Wealth

Most Americans are saving very little money, if any at all.  I know my savings have been harder to come by in recent years. Over the last few years my income was cut almost in half due to several factors.  On top of that, we were also paying cash for my wife’s bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Things got pretty tight there for a while. Saving money was not an easy thing to do, but we did manage to save a little periodically even though we were under the gun financially. Now my income is now returning to a much more […] Read more »

Before You Start To Pay Off Debt….Do THIS

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The comment reminded me of myself four and a half years ago. A reader of a post featuring my get out of debt story asked for insight regarding how I handled unexpected expenses during my debt pay-off period. I’d like to say that I had done everything perfectly during my four and a half year quest to eliminate $109,000 of credit card debt, but there were plenty of bumps along the way. If I had to single out one thing as my biggest mistake, it would be not having an emergency fund in place from the very start. The importance […] Read more »