You should have one.
You should have already had one.
You don’t have one?
ONE WHAT?
Isn’t it a lovely idea? A big pile of money… fabricated to value 3 to 6 months of expenses, that’s just waiting to solve all your problems? It’s the perfect grass is greener solution to all the stress you’re feeling.
And yes, it’s a good thing, but the conversation around it needs some focusing.
First. If you didn’t come into this pandemic with an emergency fund, it’s time to let yourself off the hook
Yes. It would have been helpful to have a big pile of cash. You don’t have one. Maybe you’ll give it some thought once things are less stressful, but for now… put down the stick you’ve been flogging yourself with and look at what you do have.
I’m done with the backwards looking advice I’m reading about how people ‘really should have saved an emergency fund’. I don’t imagine it’s very helpful.
When crisis hits, we all have whatever we have. Take stock, and if your mental energy allows… make a bit of a plan.
Second. If you have one, give yourself permission to use it
Something I’m hearing a lot from people is a real reticence to use the money they’ve put aside for emergencies. Spending that money feels like another emergency. It was so hard to save up.
I can’t tell you if this is the time to spend it. Everyone’s life is different. But what I will encourage you to do is to build a permission structure into all your pools of savings. What is an emergency? When can I spend this? Write it down on a little piece of paper.
Please don’t let using your emergency fund be another source of stress in an emergency.
There will be a time, when work comes back, for us to build better resiliency for next time. But when you are in a crisis… building systems is difficult.
If you can find some extra resources to build an emergency fund right now, do it.
If you can’t, do what you need to do to get through this, and we can talk about building one later.
