Saturday, January 14, 2017

"an emergency fund is 1000x better than having more/nicer things"

r/personalfinance:  My wife and I are in our early/mid twenties. We have saved a little more than a third of our income over the past two years so we had several thousand dollars in an emergency fund plus extra savings. The amount isn't really relevant - the point is that we had no plans to use it.
At the end of 2016 we were both in great health, and being young we decided to go with my employer's HDH plan with an HSA. Last weekend we blew through the deductible on my wife and we will likely hit the out of pocket maximum before the month is over. This health issue came out of nowhere and we're very fortunate to have good insurance.

But because we have extra savings, we don't have to make medical decisions based on cost. We can pay the full annual out of pocket maximum and we won't really miss it. If a doctor thinks a test is necessary we can simply authorize it without worrying about how we will pay for it. It has been stressful but I can't imagine how much more stressful it would be if we had to go into medical debt to pay for it all.

We could have eaten out more last year. My wife could drive a nicer car. We could live in a bigger apartment or house. But I wouldn't trade the freedom of having the extra savings for any of that.

This came out of nowhere and was frankly highly unlikely. It could happen to anyone. And we were easily able to pay for it. An emergency fund is psychologically, emotionally, physically, and financially is the most important improvement to your quality of life that you can "buy." in my opinion anyway.
Credit cards are a fools errand.

7 comments:

ricpic said...

Who's To Say?

Savers gonna save;
Spenders gonna spend.
Which way goes better:
The lean or the fat end?

chickelit said...

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.


~ Hamlet, Act I, Scene 3

Chip Ahoy said...

Roses are red and violets are purple
You scrimp and you save
Then healthcare industry is caved
By psychopathically intrusive Urkel.

rhhardin said...

You can enjoy you job with an emergency fund, doing what the company claims to do instead of kissing your boss's ass, which is what it actually does.

Rabel said...

Humblebrag.

The Dude said...

Man, ain't that the truth.

I wanted some cookies, but I am too cheap to buy them at the store. So I baked some. Of course, I had to sample the dough, and some of them crumbled as I levered them off the cookie sheet, and I had to try them out plus eat all the crumbs.

Now it turns out I ate so many cookies I feel sick.

At least I can use the money I saved to go see the doc.

That's my humblebrag - eating home baked cookies until I want to puke.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

It's a strange world where good advice comes from a liar on the internet.