debtfree wrote:
Sam wrote:
We have completed our emergency fund savings goal for this year. Goal was to save $10,000 to add to the $8,000 we had already saved. We now have $18,000 plus in our ING emergency fund which is equal to about 5 and 1/2 months of our bare bones expenses (mortgage, real estate tax and home insurance escrow savings, utilities, car insurance, gas, food). Although I have moved on to the next goal (nused car savings) I continue to sock away $500 a month in savings and @$300 a month in personal escrow savings (for annual car insurance, registration, ring insurance) which I lump into our emergency account.
Are you still adding to your emergency fund with that $500/month? It sounds like your emergency fund is plenty full?
Just had this same question over on the Fiscal Fitness forum. And my answer is
yes, for the reasons below.
We have a larger emergency fund because we have real estate investments (4) plus our primary home. As the real estate market has deflated in Florida (3 of our investments are in Fla.) we have bumped up our emergency fund because the chances of having an empty unit (all 3 are currently rented, 2 are covering the carrying costs plus a bit of profit and 1 is just covering the carrying costs) have increased. Having 3 rental units (the 4th investment property is just land) also increases the emergency opportunities. Earlier this year we had a $1700 A/C replacement at one property, we also had $800 termite tenting at another property, etc. The $1700 A/C came out of the emergency fund.
The e/r fund continues to grow because I also use it for our car insurance escrow (I generally don't pull that money back out) and my pay myself first savings. I've been shopping around for higher interest rates (thinking about a CD ladder) for about half of the e/r fund to increase our return.
