Building Your Emergency Fund Your Way

In this post I want to talk about something I think is really important to have—especially if you're a one-income family or if one of your income earners is self-employed—and that’s an emergency fund.

Emergency funds have been talked about a lot, especially by the big-name money gurus. And honestly, I get it—you might be tired of hearing about them. Maybe you’ve thought, “We’re just trying to get by. How am I supposed to set aside money we don’t have?” I’ve been there. Trust me. But I’m here to say that even if it takes time, even if it feels impossible in the beginning, you can build one—and you should.

A lot of experts recommend starting with a $1,000 emergency fund and then jumping into paying off debt. In theory, that’s a great starting point. But in real life? That number didn’t stretch far enough for our situation. And this is why I always say—yes, listen to advice from people who’ve studied this stuff—but you know your life best. You have to make a plan that actually works for you.

When I first decided to get serious about our finances, we were in rough shape. We had taken on too much, and we didn’t have the income to match. We weren’t sinking, but we were definitely treading water. I picked up Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover, and it lit a fire under me. My husband wasn’t into it—he didn’t want to follow the plan, and I couldn’t get him on board. But that didn’t stop me. I started doing it on my own. Every extra dollar I could scrape together went into our baby emergency fund.

Eventually, I hit the $1,000 mark—and I was so proud! But within weeks, our car and lawn mower both needed repairs. They were must-haves, so there went the fund. All of it.

So, I started over. But this time, I set the bar higher. I realized $1,000 just wasn’t going to cut it for our real-life emergencies. I kept pushing forward—yard sales, eBay, tax refunds—and slowly but surely, I hit my next goal: a three-month emergency fund.

Let me tell you—that felt amazing. The peace of mind it gave me was worth every bit of effort and sacrifice. The next time something broke or went wrong, we were fine. We didn’t panic. We didn’t pull out a credit card. We had the cash. That was the moment I knew I was doing the right thing by not following the plan exactly as written.

The gurus will often say to pause saving and attack your debt, and while I respect that idea, it just didn’t work for us. I made a "debt snowball" of my own, but I still kept putting a little into savings at the same time. When we finally became debt-free, we had not only paid everything off—we had doubled our emergency fund. Now we had six months of living expenses in the bank.

Once we hit that milestone, we started setting new goals. The big one? One full year of living expenses saved. I’m going to be honest though—we didn’t go full throttle toward that. Life happened. We needed to do some home repairs, and we allowed ourselves to enjoy a few “wants” along the way. But I felt free to do those things because we had that strong safety net.

So if you’ve ever felt stuck, or you’ve wondered if an emergency fund is worth the effort—this is your sign that it is.

The bottom line is this: Yes, you need an emergency fund. But how you get there and how much you set aside is up to you. Don’t feel like you have to follow someone else’s rulebook word for word. Everyone’s situation is different. Make a plan that fits your life.

However long it takes and however messy it gets, just keep going. Even small steps lead to big change.

Good luck saving—you’ve got this. 💪✨