Do you have $400 in cash or in the bank you could use in an emergency?

Well, do you?

  • Yes

    Votes: 32 84.2%

  • No

    Votes: 2 5.3%

  • Not sure, I don't use US dollars as I am from a country that uses some form of Monopoly money.

    Votes: 1 2.6%

  • Thomas would give it to me.

    Votes: 3 7.9%
  • Total voters
    38

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Very sad testament to the economic state of affairs in this country.


...the only danger with this poll/thread is that it has the potential to turn political...
 
Ideally we'd all have a couple months expenses saved up in the event of job loss or similar type event.

The fact that over half the country doesn't even have $400 to its name is concerning.
 
Fortunately, the wife is in charge of the family finances. She's a fanatic about putting something into the savings account every week. We haven't paid a finance charge on a credit card in over 10 years and when we do finance something, we take advantage of the zero interest rate deals when available. If we do have to borrow with an interest rate, she always pays it off early.

If I was in charge of the finances, we'd probably be broke.

We have enough to survive for a while if needed.
 
bideau said:
Fortunately, the wife is in charge of the family finances. She's a fanatic about putting something into the savings account every week. We haven't paid a finance charge on a credit card in over 10 years and when we do finance something, we take advantage of the zero interest rate deals when available. If we do have to borrow with an interest rate, she always pays it off early.

If I was in charge of the finances, we'd probably be broke.

We have enough to survive for a while if needed.
Click to expand...

we're generally okay, never as much as I would like to have, but I can be pretty creative at times when I need to.
 
O.Z.O. said:
we're generally okay, never as much as I would like to have, but I can be pretty creative at times when I need to.
Click to expand...

It's different for sexy bitches like you and I. If things get really bad there's always stripping.
 
bideau said:
Fortunately, the wife is in charge of the family finances. She's a fanatic about putting something into the savings account every week. We haven't paid a finance charge on a credit card in over 10 years and when we do finance something, we take advantage of the zero interest rate deals when available. If we do have to borrow with an interest rate, she always pays it off early.

If I was in charge of the finances, we'd probably be broke.

We have enough to survive for a while if needed.
Click to expand...

You may be married to Lori. Who knows. Anyway you have described her to a tee.

Personally I carry just $100 each month on just one of my cards just because, for 2 months in row a couple years back, they took a little whack at my FICO with the reason stated being that since there were no debts carried from month to month so they couldn't tell whether I could handle it and thus I'm a bit more of a risk. The 100 per month I carry at 12% comes to roughly a buck a month. And doing that has worked. Now they can see what a great job I do handling my credit card load and voted me debtor of the year.


Cheers
 
BostonTim said:
You may be married to Lori. Who knows. Anyway you have described her to a tee.

Personally I carry just $100 dollars on just one of my cards just because, for 2 months in row, the took a little whack at my FICO with the reason stated being that since there were no debts carried from month to month they couldn't tell whether I could handle it and thus I'm a bit more of a risk. The 100 per month I carry at 12% comes to roughly a buck a month. And doing that has worked. Now they can see what a great job I do handling my credit card load and voted me debtor of the year.


Cheers
Click to expand...
Can't you accomplish the same thing by just paying off the credit card every month but thus avoiding interest charges?
 
So, 53% of Americans ignore the concept of putting a little something aside for an emergency.

I accept the concept of "some" are living paycheck to paycheck or retirement check/social security check. I reject the premise that 53% couldn't put something aside regardless of what this particular poll says.

As indicated in the article, the authors problems appear to be self inflicted, living beyond his means. Virtually anyone that characterizes themselves as middle class or more has the option to live within their means and have savings.
 
subroc said:
So, 53% of Americans ignore the concept of putting a little something aside for an emergency.

I accept the concept of "some" are living paycheck to paycheck or retirement check/social security check. I reject the premise that 53% couldn't put something aside regardless of what this particular poll says.

As indicated in the article, the authors problems appear to be self inflicted, living beyond his means. Virtually anyone that characterizes themselves as middle class or more has the option to live within their means and have savings.
Click to expand...

I think it's the opposite.
 
Jaric said:
Can't you accomplish the same thing by just paying off the credit card every month but thus avoiding interest charges?
Click to expand...

Yes, that's what we do. We always pay the balance in full every month and both our scores are over 800. The agencies just want to see that you're using them and not late with payments.

We also have a card which has a very good points program. We paid for a chunk of our recent Montana trip with the points we accumulated.
 
Jaric said:
Can't you accomplish the same thing by just paying off the credit card every month but thus avoiding interest charges?
Click to expand...

Not as I understand it.

They need to see debt to evaluate you're ability to handle debt. If you stay debt free you get FICO'd just a bit lower. AFAICT. So I I'm paying a buck a month for about 25 Points on my FICO. No big deal being in the 98th percentile either way, but I take those points personally and I can afford the buck. :shrug:

Or you could be right in which case ...(fill in the blanks).


Cheers
 
bideau said:
Yes, that's what we do. We always pay the balance in full every month and both our scores are over 800. The agencies just want to see that you're using them and not late with payments.

We also have a card which has a very good points program. We paid for a chunk of our recent Montana trip with the points we accumulated.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's what I thought. My ex wife kinda ****ed up my credit (by my standards at least) before we broke it off, so I've been looking at ways to bring it back up. Aside from car and home loans I'm debt free so I'm leery to use my credit card for anything although I do occasionally use it and then pay it off immediately.
 
$400? LOL good lord. Currently I keep about 4 months expenses in a standard savings account to cover any type of life emergency. I'd prefer to bump it to 6 eventually. It ****ing blows my mind how undervalued emergency funds are in our society these days. Couple of relevant stories...

1. Right now the Canadian government is under fire because it rolled out a new payroll system that has been a catastrophic failure. For months public servants have had issues with pay cheques, including missing payments all together. For some who received promotions their increased salary hasn't been paid yet while in extreme cases there are people who haven't been paid in a couple of months. It's all technical and eventually will be sorted. I know some people like my girlfriend are already beginning to see backpay show up on their pay cheques.

Now, the situation is ridiculous and an embarrassment. Anyone impacted certainly has the right to be angry. However, there are numerous commentators on Reddit who say things like, "This is our livelihoods! One pay cheque missed and I would have to go to a food bank!" Others report friends who are missing increased promotion salaries (ie. got promoted from 50k to 60k but the extra income isn't being paid yet) and are now going into debt to cover the missing money they 'depend' on. I see statements like, "People plan their expenses around expecting X salary every single month!" and when emergency funds are brought up people claim that a situation like this is unexpected and thus can't be planned for.

Retards. That is the exact purpose of an EF. You don't build it for things you expect to happen (well, you can but that's not the sole purpose) - it's to guard against the unknown. These people who are owed a month of backpay could have just as easily lost their jobs or became too ill to work or had a major uncovered loss to their home, etc. and they'd be just as ****ed. The notion that public servants - who by the way are paid way above the national average - are one pay cheque away from food banks is ****ing insane. I have people on my Facebook with decent incomes who often post (almost brag) about living pay cheque to pay cheque.

Then you get people who argue leaving money in a savings account doing nothing is foolish. Obviously I seriously value passive income and investing, but these guys actually argue that tapping into stocks to cover unexpected expenses is a fine alternative. Do they not realize that if the bad thing that happens to you is a job loss during a recession, selling stocks actually compounds your lost wealth?! Jesus.

2. My girlfriend's dog is sick. He's a bit older and has a few lumps on his body that need to be removed, including one under his eyelid that would eventually blind him if nothing is done. Completely unexpected expense. Quote from vet is about $2000 for surgery. A lot of money. My girlfriend has a few months of expenses available as well - so guess what? No food bank for her. I've offered to chip in a bit just because he's my dog too now, but she could/would cover the entire thing out of pocket and be just fine ... because she smartly planned for the unknown.

An emergency fund is literally one of the most important components of a sound personal finance strategy. Regardless of income or life circumstances. Not being prepared for the unknown almost always has negative rather than positive consequences, and those consequences can often impact your financial well-being for months or even years after the event.

TLDR - Stop willingly living pay cheque to pay cheque and save some ****ing money, OK?
 
mooseontheloose said:
$400? LOL good lord. Currently I keep about 4 months expenses in a standard savings account to cover any type of life emergency. I'd prefer to bump it to 6 eventually. It ****ing blows my mind how undervalued emergency funds are in our society these days. Couple of relevant stories...

1. Right now the Canadian government is under fire because it rolled out a new payroll system that has been a catastrophic failure. For months public servants have had issues with pay cheques, including missing payments all together. For some who received promotions their increased salary hasn't been paid yet while in extreme cases there are people who haven't been paid in a couple of months. It's all technical and eventually will be sorted. I know some people like my girlfriend are already beginning to see backpay show up on their pay cheques.

Now, the situation is ridiculous and an embarrassment. Anyone impacted certainly has the right to be angry. However, there are numerous commentators on Reddit who say things like, "This is our livelihoods! One pay cheque missed and I would have to go to a food bank!" Others report friends who are missing increased promotion salaries (ie. got promoted from 50k to 60k but the extra income isn't being paid yet) and are now going into debt to cover the missing money they 'depend' on. I see statements like, "People plan their expenses around expecting X salary every single month!" and when emergency funds are brought up people claim that a situation like this is unexpected and thus can't be planned for.

Retards. That is the exact purpose of an EF. You don't build it for things you expect to happen (well, you can but that's not the sole purpose) - it's to guard against the unknown. These people who are owed a month of backpay could have just as easily lost their jobs or became too ill to work or had a major uncovered loss to their home, etc. and they'd be just as ****ed. The notion that public servants - who by the way are paid way above the national average - are one pay cheque away from food banks is ****ing insane. I have people on my Facebook with decent incomes who often post (almost brag) about living pay cheque to pay cheque.

Then you get people who argue leaving money in a savings account doing nothing is foolish. Obviously I seriously value passive income and investing, but these guys actually argue that tapping into stocks to cover unexpected expenses is a fine alternative. Do they not realize that if the bad thing that happens to you is a job loss during a recession, selling stocks actually compounds your lost wealth?! Jesus.

2. My girlfriend's dog is sick. He's a bit older and has a few lumps on his body that need to be removed, including one under his eyelid that would eventually blind him if nothing is done. Completely unexpected expense. Quote from vet is about $2000 for surgery. A lot of money. My girlfriend has a few months of expenses available as well - so guess what? No food bank for her. I've offered to chip in a bit just because he's my dog too now, but she could/would cover the entire thing out of pocket and be just fine ... because she smartly planned for the unknown.

An emergency fund is literally one of the most important components of a sound personal finance strategy. Regardless of income or life circumstances. Not being prepared for the unknown almost always has negative rather than positive consequences, and those consequences can often impact your financial well-being for months or even years after the event.

TLDR - Stop willingly living pay cheque to pay cheque and save some ****ing money, OK?
Click to expand...

Not as much as I would like to have put away, but I feel confident that I can handle something unexpected to a point. For example, we have an emergency plumbing job coming up where the plumber is going to need to cut through the slab in our family room, re-route the pipe, and then seal it. On top of that, there are carpeting and drywall damages that need to be taken care of as well. Insurance (thankfully) will cover most of it, but I'm still anticipating up to possibly a couple thousand dollars of out of pocket expenses. We put about $125 a week into savings (also larger chunks over the course of the year when we can), so thankfully we have a little cash tucked aside for just such a situation. You mentioned your girlfriend's dog- one of our dogs was dealt a real shit from a health standpoint. She usually requires a couple thousand dollars a year in expenses, generally several hundred dollars at a time in less than opportune circumstances.

Save money, live simply. You can still enjoy life AND be smart about it.
 
imapig said:
My hoe's give me my money when i click my fingers.
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21900799.54855d96b4b0e.png
 
O.Z.O. said:
Not as much as I would like to have put away, but I feel confident that I can handle something unexpected to a point. For example, we have an emergency plumbing job coming up where the plumber is going to need to cut through the slab in our family room, re-route the pipe, and then seal it. On top of that, there are carpeting and drywall damages that need to be taken care of as well. Insurance (thankfully) will cover most of it, but I'm still anticipating up to possibly a couple thousand dollars of out of pocket expenses. We put about $125 a week into savings (also larger chunks over the course of the year when we can), so thankfully we have a little cash tucked aside for just such a situation. You mentioned your girlfriend's dog- one of our dogs was dealt a real shit from a health standpoint. She usually requires a couple thousand dollars a year in expenses, generally several hundred dollars at a time in less than opportune circumstances.

Save money, live simply. You can still enjoy life AND be smart about it.
Click to expand...

You bring up a good point - I don't know how much home insurance deductibles are in the US, but here they are generally $500-1000. So if we're talking about $400 being an issue for many people, that means they don't even have enough funds available to pay the deductible of a covered loss. I mean ... wow.

I feel for people who work their asses off and still struggle. Some of them make great decisions and make the most out of their situations.

But too many make excuses. They are unwilling to make sacrifices (ie. 2nd jobs, reduced spending on fun, etc.) to put money into things that matter. Then they end up living pay cheque to pay cheque because the majority of their disposable income pays for bloated car loans they didn't need, mortgages they can't afford, a brand new iPhone every year, vacations on credit cards, etc. Then they blame the government and economy. At least here.

It's sickening honestly and seriously dampens the broader appreciation for legitimate financial struggles (ie. single mom with no car living in low-income housing while working 2 jobs to put her kids through school).
 
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