- Your emergency fund is your safety net: if you get sick or lose your job, you can use your emergency savings to last you a few months until you find a new job. Your emergency account should be in Many Americans today do not have a savings account or emergency fund. I recently heard on the news that the Commerce Department announced that Americans are spending all the money they have and the personal savings rate has reached its lowest level since the Great Depression. Your emergency fund is your safety net: if you get sick or lose your job, you can use your emergency savings to tide you over for a few months until you find a new job. Your emergency account should be separate from your checking or savings accounts and should only be used for emergencies such as unexpected expenses, unemployment, medical bills. etc. An emergency fund should be enough savings to pay your bills for at least 3 to 6 months. Money for an emergency fund should be readily available and kept in a checking or savings account, preferably a high-interest savings account like Emigrant Direct or ING, or a money market account where you can earn money while saving money. To figure out how much money is needed to pay 3 to 6 monthly bills, take inventory and write down all your bills and expenses and the monthly amount spent on each. Calculate the sum. Use that amount and multiply it by 3 or 6 to determine the total amount you need to put into your emergency fund. Before you open an account for your emergency fund, do some comparison shopping to make sure there are no minimum or other access fees. Your Account. A good resource to use is You can start by contributing small amounts to your emergency fund until you are able to contribute more. Start by contributing at least $20 a month to your emergency fund. Once you are able to contribute more to the fund, please do so. Make some short-term goals for your emergency fund. Pat yourself on the back once you've saved enough money to pay one bill. Then save until you have enough to pay three bills, and so on until you have enough saved to pay 3 to 6 months of bills and expenses. Once you've reached your emergency fund goal, it's time to start developing some long-term term goals like another savings account and start planning for retirement. A great site to learn about retirement planning is and check out the Personal Finance section. Having an emergency fund will ensure that you are on the road to financial security and prevent yourself from going into debt. when an unexpected tragedy occurs or unexpected expenses arise. An emergency fund is the first step to getting and staying out of debt. Your emergency fund is your safety net: if you get sick or lose your job, you can use your emergency savings to last you a few months until you find a new job. Your emergency account should be in September… Many Americans today do not have a savings account or emergency fund. I recently heard on the news that the Commerce Department announced that Americans are spending all the money they have and the personal savings rate has reached its lowest level since the Great Depression. Your emergency fund is your safety net: if you get sick or lose your job, you can use your emergency savings to tide you over for a few months until you find a new job. Your emergency account should be separate from your checking or savings accounts and should only be used for emergencies such as unexpected expenses, unemployment, medical bills. etc. An emergency fund should be enough savings to pay your bills for at least 3 to 6 months. Money for an emergency fund should be readily available and kept in a checking or savings account, preferably a high-interest savings account like Emigrant Direct or ING, or a money market account where you can earn money while saving money. To figure out how much money is needed to pay 3 to 6 monthly bills, take inventory and write down all your bills and expenses and the monthly amount spent on each. Calculate the sum. Use that amount and multiply it by 3 or 6 to determine the total amount you need to put into your emergency fund. Before you open an account for your emergency fund, do some comparison shopping to make sure there are no minimum or other access fees.
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