Emergency Fund Poll - How prepared are you for an emergency?

Out,_Vile_Jelly

I've saved at least 10% of every payday, even when I was on a low wage and a tight budget. Interestingly, my brother is the complete opposite and has always been casual and happy-go-lucky with his income. The saving mentality seems to be hard-wired into many people.

engineer_amy

Yes - I'm MSE to the core! Emergency Fund at the ready!

After having spent years living month to month and any emergencies were put onto credit cards, now I have a healthy emergency fund, and also a disaster fund (should I be unable to work for an extended period of time) and also income protection insurance.
I work with a number of people, older than me and with children who have zero in the way of savings, and I would panic if I didn't have something put away.
I had one colleague in my office in tears last year as the boiler had died, the car had broken down and her husband had been told of the possibility of layoffs or reduced hours all in the same day. She didnt know how she was going to cope.
I offered to give her a hand with budgeting and how to cut costs, got her a better broadband/tv/phone deal, got her mortgage off the SVR onto a fixed rate and saved her nearly £250 per month. Advised her to put that £250 into a savings account and not touch it for a few months to build an emergency fund. Next thing I know, she is telling me she has just got a new phone contract for her eldest child on an Iphone X and planning a holiday because of "all this extra money they have each month".
Obviously I know it is her money to do what she wants with, but surely she wouldn't want to be in the same situation again?

Primrose

Yes - I'm MSE to the core! Emergency Fund at the ready!

I know people like this. They find it difficult to ignore the immediate gratification pull, whether for themselves or their children and sadly they don,t learn hard lessons. Immediately there is some spare cash available it has to be spent on something rather than saved for a rainy day.

I would wager a bet that if disaster strikes her again you will simply say "That's tough" and walk away. Doing otherwise just enables people to continue in their same bad habits.

Mummy2cheekymonkeys

Yes - I'm MSE to the core! Emergency Fund at the ready!

Some people wI'll never change their ways. My sister and her husband are the same. He has known for 2 years that he was going to be made redundant. They have continued to live pay check to pay check without saving anything. He finally found out he will be losing his job at the end of March so she put some money aside from her pay this month to go shopping and stock up the cupboards!!! Oh but they also booked a short break away for next month. If that had have been me and my OH, we would have cut back on anything and everything and put as much as we could into savings. One difference is we own our home and they rent. We have never had to ask for money yet they are always being bailed out. They never have to learn the hard way. Problem is the people they always rely on are getting on and won't always be around to bail them out.

Primrose

Yes - I'm MSE to the core! Emergency Fund at the ready!

I think when it's family getting in financial difficulties it's harder to turn around and walk away but in my book you might bail them out once if they have reckless habits.


After that it's time to say "Look, we need to have a difficult conversation with you. You're adults and free to adopt whatever lifestyle you want, but if you don't start budgeting and planning for future emergencies you can't expect us to put our own family's future at risk because we're prepared to make financial sacrifices when you aren't".


We've had more than our own share of bailing family members out financially over the years but through our own frugal habits have managed to build a reasonable emergency fund. However, we've also had our own fair share of redundancies which makes me mindful of how misfortune or ill health can unexpectedly overtake even people who try to live sensible financial lives. That's why we always make a contribution to the Food Bank collecting basket in the supermarket where we do our weekly shop. There are some people who are in genuine financial hardship through no fault of their own.

hb2

We have a small amount of spare ready cash, the rest is in savings and not instantly accessible. So it would have to be the credit card until we could access the savings if it was more than we have to hand.

Iheart

I have about 2 months wages in an emergency fund (£1500). I had more but my son needed a private OT assessment recently so had to pay out £1000 for that.


I have a CC that I am trying to pay off. every so often I think that I should use my emergency fund to pay most of it off. Then I give my head a wobble and remember that then I would be stuck in an endless cycle that I am trying to break free of.

Nathaniel_Essex

Never new boiler cover existed. Probably will take that out as everything else I probably could afford out of pocket.

With that said, there is a massive difference between a £400 (if even that) washing machine breaking and a £5,000 boiler. The latter would completely devastate my savings and leaf e me vulnerable if wife or I were to suddenly lose our jobs.

cheeky-peach

Yes - I'm MSE to the core! Emergency Fund at the ready!

We have an emergency fund but not a disaster fund; if we were to lose our jobs, it would be a struggle. Some people I know have a years worth of wages in savings which is a luxury for most, myself included!

pickledonionspaceraider

Yes - I'm MSE to the core! Emergency Fund at the ready!

Problem with our emergency fund is, it was used in an emergency

Then another two emergencies happened within quite a short period of time before we had chance to properly build it back up again, but we are trying - we both put a set amount aside each month

We feel comfortable if we have three months wages set aside - that is our ideal situation but we are no where near at the mo

Right at this moment in time, if we had a 'need a new washing machine' type of emergency, we would be OK, but if anything bigger happened within the next, say, six months, we would be having to get a credit card

If one of us lost our jobs, we would be straight down the agencies taking whatever work we could immediately get

It is a worry to not have a buffer - but even if you plan, you never know how big (financially speaking) an emergency you may have or how ongoing it may be - so you can only plan so much really

Strange really as I went through years of having no emergency fund savings, very poor credit and no one to borrow off, and I have never had the types of 'expensive' emergencies we have had over the last few years, feeling we were more organised

Sometimes an emergency can be an ongoing thing, such as if someone is ill off work for a long period of time etc

I dunno im just rambling now so ill shuffle off lol