Do you have an emergency fund??
If so do you prefer to hide your cash at home or keep it in the bank??
We do not put ours in the bank . The interest here in NZ is low and you get taxed on it PLUS who knows what is going to happen with the world money markets and we want to have some cash on hand.
How much would you consider is viable to have in your emergency fund.

I think an emergency fund is a wonderful idea. Dh and I started ours but then with his job not paying us it disappeared quickly. Dave Ramsey says to have $1000 saved and then to start paying off debt. I think $1000 is a great amount. Anything above that I would consider savings which is an entirely different amount.

We keep our emergency savings in an ING account. Its easy to get to if we need it but is also earning good interest. I do think it is smart to have some cash on hand but maybe not enough to consider it an emergency fund. It depends on your situation though.

__________________
Proud mommy to adorable Kinsley

MY BLOG!

$1000 in our savings with the goal to make it $2000 by the end of this year. We add 100 every month. so $1400 now. An e-fund should be 3-6 months of expences and in a high interest account gaining 3-6% interest. We are working our way up to that.

__________________
Kimberly Proud Mommy to Bethany Rose April 2006

We have an emergency account, that actually has been used recently, in an ING account. It has a high interest rate and takes a couple of days to withdraw the money from, so we're pretty good at only using it for emergencies. Of course it is not anywhere as high as I would like it to be.

I opened a savings acct with ING for the idea that it would be an emergency fund. We have about $600 in there now, I depost $40 every other week, but I would like to increase it to $50 so that would be $100 going in there monthly. Its a nice feeling to know that if we really need it, it will be there! I'm trying not to touch it for anything though.

__________________
~Missy~Mommy
Meghan7.Samantha6,Cameron4

Back together!! Sept 28th Boston TDCenter!! Woohooooo!

HOw do you withdraw money out of yours?? The one time I tried, I got a message to contact customer service?? I'm kinda glad it didn't work then I didn't end up taking money, but I actually think I might need to do it this week as I think I might overdraw my checkbook.

__________________
~Missy~Mommy
Meghan7.Samantha6,Cameron4

Back together!! Sept 28th Boston TDCenter!! Woohooooo!

We have our fund with ING b/c of the rate. It is pure savings not an investment account, which would be smarter but I'm so conservative I like to keep them seperate. It is easy to transfer money over the internet to and from my bank of america accounts. We have a few thousand in there right now, you should have a goal of 3-6 months of expenses, 6-9 if you are a one income family. We are no where close to that yet though, slowly working on it! I have to pay my vehicles off first!

I have a few hundred cash stashed in the house, but I'm not worried about the global economy. If everyone hadn't rushed to the banks and taken their money out we wouldn't have gone belly up years ago, hopefully people are smarter next time we hit a depression!

__________________

I am only one, but I am one. I can not do everything, but I can do something. I must not fail to do the something that I can do. -Edward Hale

For the first time ever, we do!!! I saved some out of our income tax refund. It's not as much as I had hoped, but it's a start!

We are a one income family in California so our emergency fund is, in my eyes, mainly for the extreme situation of if my husband lost his job, so we'd be able to get by until he got a new one. Since I started my budget we have saved $17,000 for this fund. My goal is $20,000. It may seem like a lot, and maybe it's better to put this in a CD (I don't think they earn much more interest than ING, though), but I want to be sure it's liquid and we'd be covered for 4-6 months, especially the mortgage. We also have a regular s/a that I'd pull out of if we need in a 'minor' emergency. We use ING which has great interest and it's easy to transfer any money needed to our BofA c/a. We have an automatic savings deposit to ING each month so we don't have to think about it. And some cash in the safe just in case we need it, like, in the next minute!

__________________
The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket. ~~ Will Rogers

We have some cash stashed at home in case of extreme emergency and we have an actual account at the bank which is a savings account that gets less than 1% interest so we don't keep a whole lot there. Right now it's around $1300. Most of our money is tied up in CD's so we could get it out if we really had to but would be penalized.

It's just really nice to know we have both "in case of emergency". We haven't had to use them yet but I am still working - when I'm not I'm sure it will really come in handy.