I'm wondering how you safeguard yourself from spending your emergency fund on non-emergencies? As for me, my change box is too heavy to pick up and run to the store to spend. I also would be too embarassed to count out a hundred dollars in pennies. Our 401k is payroll deducted and a bit difficult to get to unless there is a true emergency. We put some of our money into building an emergency stockpile of food, toiletries, firewood etc.

I'm thinking of starting a true emergency fund (cushion) with 6 months expenses but am wondering how to safeguard it from spending on anything but a true emergency. Anyone have any ideas?

Why do you think you would spend it? If it isn't an emergency then you don't touch it. Period.

I guess I don't understand the question...

Well a change jar is a good start- I would look into other options. Open a savings acct and then forget about it. Deposit your change into it every few weeks or month. That way you have it safeguarded- it is not within immediate reach and you will be earning a bit on it by having it in the bank. Other options are short term CD's- like 12 or 18 month ones. We stack our CD's so we have a 1 year or 18 month one, a 3 year and a 5 year CD. I think if it is still in the house you still have access to spend it- oh such and such store is having a great sale- it is easy to go to the bank and get dollars for all that change- but out of sight out of mind for me. Take it to the bank and forget about it.

Maybe if you had some ideas of what would constitute an emergency.Like, your car dies and you NEED it to keep your job...or your furnace needs repair and it's winter...maybe running a few ideas through your head will help you remember just what you are saving this emergency fund for, and how awful it would be to have one of these things happen to you and you had NO emergency fund.

I guess you would Have to decide for yourself what a true emergency is.

I think that is the only way you can Constitute spending an emergency fund.

I don't see any other way...

Ours is in an ING account and it takes a few days to get. Helps with impulse buys.

Short term CDs. You get higher interest, but you can't touch it. If you do, there is a small penalty.

I have a baby EF to the tune of $2K, have had it set aside all year, never once been tempted to spend it as I haven't had an emergency this year. I keep mine in ING, it's accessible and earning interest.

We set an account up at a bank that is local only to my mother's area. We live approximately 2 -3 hours away. We don't have checks or a debit card for the account. We send a check bi-weekly to my mom to deposit in our account. If we need $$ Mom sends a check or could give us a Credit Card # to use - she's authorized on the account, so she could withdraw money to pay herself back - or just keep the next few checks.

We *did* dip in for vacation this year...and we were less than $25 from having $1000 in - so it hurt to take it out. But my oldest ds will be starting preschool this year and I know it will be hard to do a vacation after he's in school...we went with family so we had a condo for 4 nights for $250 total - so we did at least try to be price concious on our trip - no souveneirs for dh & I - 1 t-shirt a piece for the boys...and mom ended up buying those (she bought 1 for each of her grandchildren). This was also our only vacation since our oldest child was born....(can anyone say justification?) LOL

Anyway - that's how we make it harder to touch.

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Stephanie (27) & Virgil (31)
Caden 3 y.o. 11/28/04 29w preemie
Wyatt 17 mos. 9/25/06
#3 due 8/24/08