YW Blogcast 11 - The emergency fund saves the day.

No, it’s not Underdog this time. Today we’re going to talk about a simple little financial survival technique that you should get busy on whether a recent grad or still in school. Think you’re too cool for an emergency fund? Think again. Unless overwhelming stress and financial Armageddon are things you crave, listen up to this one.

Every single person on this planet other than Bill Gates and Warren Buffett need an emergency fund. Okay, maybe we can add most professional athletes to this list also but you get the point.

Let’s say you’ve started with the baby step of recording every expense for a solid month to find out where it’s all going. Let’s even say you took that information and came up with an honest-to-goodness budget and you’re even sort of sticking to it.

Congratulations! You’re ahead of most of us. The trouble is, unless you have an emergency fund ($1,000 is a good number), your budget is a ticking time bomb waiting to get blown to smithereens. What happens when you or your car gets sick? Or you have to book a last minute plane ticket to bail your mother out of a Tijuana jail? You gotta do it – get the car fixed, bail her out, whatever IT is.

These count as emergencies. If you have an emergency fund, life goes on. If you don’t, your budget gets destroyed, you have to sell blood plasma for grocery money, and bad luck multiplies.

Don’t be a doofus. Make saving until you have a $1,000 emergency fund a HIGH priority.