Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Emergency funds are good

Don't have a huge amount to post but just wanted to have written something after my last post. This blog is very much my personal diary space and I tend to be very open most of the time but I just don't have anything else to write about it at the moment. Maybe that will change but in the meantime I'll just get back to posting random day-to-day stuff.

One thing last week reinforced is how important it is to have an emergency fund in place. I don't but at least I have come far enough along my debt-free path that I had a credit card with a four thousand euro limit and no outstanding balance on it. Between flights, one night in a hotel, car hire, petrol, tolls, mobile phone top-ups, food and whatever random stuff came up I ended up spending about seven hundred on the credit card and withdrawing about another four hundred in cash from my already overdrawn Irish account (again, it was good that I had reduced that overdraft to less than two-thirds of the limit as otherwise I would have been stuck trying to frantically borrow money from somewhere - not easy to organise on a weekend or from a different country). If I had had even a basic thousand euro emergency fund in place, I would have had almost all of that covered.

I do have just over three hundred built up in savings since August but I'm leaving that there and will just pay off the debt the same way I had been planning to with a couple of months tacked on to the other end as well. And by the time I have finished paying it all off, I should also have at least one thousand saved. Now, with a bit of luck my dentist appointment in a couple of weeks time won't reveal anything costly needing to be done!

2 comments:

Fiona said...

The last thing you could possibly need is financial stresses on top of what has happened.

That's the great thing about "Emergency Funds"...when you actually need them, it's likely to be a stressful event of some kind already. Taking the financial stress out can only help.

Hope your week back at work is going well. It must be strange having to get back to doing 'day to day' things after such an event. Thinking of you.

Softie said...

I am glad you were able to feel secure in your finances particularly during such a stressful time. As usual it seems like your plan is very logical and well thought out. I have thought of you during these days and was glad to see a new post from you.