Frugal Village Forums banner

2010 Emergency Fund Challenge - FINAL

24K views 509 replies 57 participants last post by  Greebo 
#1 ·
Welcome to the 2010 Frugal Village Emergency Fund Challenge!

The goal of this challenge is to inspire Frugal Villagers to set something aside for a rainy day. Inspired by Grandmother's everywhere, the rainy day fund is the best way to ensure that when something goes wrong, when storm clouds gather on the horizon, that said rain only becomes a nuisance, not a crisis.

In this challenge we will track how much has been added to the emergency funds of our members. To participate, all you need to do is post when you add money to, or take money out of, your emergency fund. You may share your total EF or keep that private, at your discretion.

Any questions or comments on this challenge may be posted in this thread as well.
 
  • Like
Reactions: piedpiper
#2 ·
And I'll go ahead and kick this one off - as part of our payroll deductions, $300 every 2 weeks is automatically put into our separate emergency fund account, and New Years Day was payday. (Technically the checks came out early and I got paid on 12/31 but that's just cause of the bank holiday so :p I call "first" on this one. ;) )

To date, Frugal Villagers have added:
$300
To their Emergency Funds in 2010!


WAY TO GO!

;)
 
#5 ·
Well, if you have any consumer debt, AND if you don't foresee any upcoming crises (like job loss) then I'd suggest you stop now, and focus on paying that off.

In the worst case scenario, you can use the BEF for the first $1,500 and if you need more, you *can* go back into debt.

And if you don't have an unexpected worst case, then you pay off the debt, saving more and more money each month as the interest costs go down.

If you don't pay the debt down and build up the EF instead, then you're losing way more ground on interest costs.
 
#7 ·
How much are most people aiming for? I put $4500 for us, because thats 6 months of house payments, but I see everyone doing far less. I do still have CC's to pay off.
 
#8 ·
That's a personal choice.

For us, we're working on our fully funded EF which is a minimum of 3 months of expenses. We're deviating from DR a bit on this one - we're investing into retirement simultaneously. We deviated because we're pretty confident that my job isn't going anywhere (I work in health insurance). We estimate that we'll have 3 months saved up by Nov. (We have 1 now)
 
#9 ·
For now we have added $300 from this paycheck. Hubby has a whole lot of OT so once I pay our six month car insurance I will see what is left and be adding more to the EF. Happy New Year everybody!!!
 
#11 ·
I'm in. I want to get my 1,000.00 BFF done. I have put in $50.86 so far.
 
#13 ·
I'm in. I put in $25 with a target of $2500. I am now at $250 - totally ravaged the fund over the last year so it is rebuilding time. Unfortunately, we have a lot of unsecured debt. Will pay minimum's until our BEF is 'fully funded' and then it is time to focus on the debt.
 
#14 ·
I'm in too! Goal for the year is to get EF from $10,400 to $12,000. Transferred $100 today. Will transfer more later in the month. We're off to a good start!
 
#15 ·
I added $20.00 to my EF. Finally moved past that
$14.00 that was in there for so long....

I am not setting a year end goal amount. I will just
be adding to it each week on Friday. The amounts
will differ depending on what obligations are coming
out of that paycheck.

Thanks, Greebo. Challenges like this help me "get
going".
 
#18 ·
Greebo
-We are sure as we can be my Dh's job is secure. He is in specialized IT and travels internationally or works from home for a large firm that does restructuring for many clients. My DH has 8 accts. even though 2 would be plenty. He is going to Bermuda the 10th for 2 weeks they want him for 3 months but the other clients (spelled CHILDREN) get jealous.

-We have more consumer debt than we could pay in 12 months and a child in college.
-my anxiety level jumped up and down last year w/ the E.F.
-We still are contributing to the retirement fund but started late and are almost (ouch) a decade older.
-total debt load $107,000ish w/ the main mortgage done 12/2013 and 2nd 5/2016.
- I hope to dump 1 CC w/ the tax return and pay most of our bank loan w/ double and triple payments while paying tuition and adding $250. at least to savings, we'll see.
-also need a new furnace. working fine but from 1972 (60% efficient.)
 
#25 ·
I think perhaps you might want to discuss this in the Debt Reduction forum as there are a lot of variables here not directly EF related. What do you think?
 
#19 ·
I added $100 today which brings my EF to $863.99. My goal is $1000 and then I'm going to work like crazy to pay off my student loan. My goal is to pay it off in a year.
 
#21 ·
This is my biggest goal this year. I had a baby ten weeks ago, and his father and I live together, but are not married.

I am not comfortable relying on DB. There are no guarantees. Right now I have no income, no posessions, no car, no savings. Nothing. That is not okay with me.

Should something happen and I suddenly have to support my son and myself alone, I want to be prepared.

My goal is to get a $1500 EF set up just for the two of us ASAP. I won't be hiding it, but DB won't have any kind of access to it either.

When he files his taxes the end of this month, half of the tax credit for Parker is going to me. That $500 will be going directly into my EF. The beginning of February I will be getting a check for anywhere from $500-$1000+. Everything up to $1500 will go into Parker and my EF. Everything above that amount will go into the savings account for buying myself a car(that will be in my name and my name only.)

We'll also be working on getting a household $1000 EF setup (funded by his income) as well.
 
#46 ·
I cannot see that this posts report anything actually having been added yet, so this post did not affect the new total coming up. Please let me know if I misread this.
 
#22 ·
Okay... since it's officially 2010, time to kick this bad boy off !

I added -- $50
 
#26 ·
Count me In, I don't post here much, more of a lurker but as of today we have $83.71 in ours, I would like to have 3k by the end of the year. we shall see. great job everyone. [/COLOR]
 
#30 ·
I have heard more than one person say that to him, but I think he is right. You have lots of stuff going on. At least post this info in the debt reduction thread and see what they will say.....:winter:
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top