It is said that everyone should have an emergency fund saved, 3 months worth of outgoings is the aim.
The purpose of it is to be somewhere for you to fall back on should the worse happen and you lose your job or you have an unexpected big bill to pay out for. If you have an emergency fund in place it is there to support you and financially take the stress.
It is a great idea in principle as it means you are not scratching around trying to find money or even resorting to borrowing money from family or payday loans.
However what can you do to build an emergency fund if you are on a tight budget?
I am going to be completely honest here with you and tell you we don’t have an emergency fund as such. We have money put away which I use for my matched betting and we have a small amount of savings but that is it.
That money isn’t there for an emergency but building a pot to pay off our debts.
Currently whilst we are down to just 1 salary coming in we are in a bit of a squirreling stage. We are just throwing as much spare cash that we can against our debts to snowball them away then we can focusing on our emergency fund pot.
It’s not been easy and I don’t expect it to be easy for a few months however we will keep going.
So what can you do to build yourself an emergency fund if you are on a tight budget.
- Look at your budget and see if you can afford to put anything away. Even if its only £5 or £10 a month its a start and its more than you have done in the previous months.
- Have a clear out – not only good for the pot but good for the mind too! We regularly have a clear out of the bits in the house we no longer need. Simply pop them onto Ebay or places like Facebook selling pages and put any money earned into the pot.
- Cut outgoings and save the difference – Have a look at your budget and see if there is any areas you can cut back on. For example if your able to switch gas & electric suppliers and save a few pounds a month, put this saving straight into the emergency pot.
These are just a few suggestions on saving money whilst on a tight budget, do you have any other great suggestions?
This is a sponsored post however all thoughts are my own