Note: I originally posted most of this to the Official Ramsey Baby Steps Community group on Facebook, but since I learned from Tam to never waste my good material at an away game, here it is again, with a few expansions.
I’m happy to be bouncing back into Baby Step 1 for a month or so, but grateful that we had that emergency fund when we needed it.
Two weeks ago I was jumping on my motorcycle for a quick trip to Illinois so that I could attend my uncle’s funeral, and be there for my mom and my cousins. Emergency fund covered my couple of days worth of hotel expenses, including a totally unplanned safety stop halfway home.
On Sunday, my wife was on her way home from dropping our oldest son off at camp when she blew a tire. When roadside assistance showed up to help her change the spare, he noticed that her other rear tire was similarly worn and in danger. So into a hotel she went for the night, then the next morning got four new tires and a fix for the loose tie rod which was causing the misalignment and unexpected tire wear.
So our emergency fund is basically down to zero for a bit. Not the end of the world, it just means that I’ll be scrambling to refill it as quickly as possible now. Dave Ramsey talks on his show about being “Gazelle Intense” when getting out of debt, well, when the emergency fund is empty, we’re not just running from the hungry lions, I can hear them breathing down our necks! That said, I’m grateful that we were able to weather two emergencies without adding to our debt.
Truthfully, if this had happened last summer it would have been a completely different story. I probably would have been scrambling to open another credit card, take out a 401(k) loan, or some other poor financial decision to get our van back on the road. I likely wouldn’t have made it to my uncle’s funeral. I’d be a lot more stressed out trying to figure out how to pay for our latest financial hit.
We started on the Ramsey plan last October. Knowing we have a backup plan, and having a working strategy to deal with issues like these when they come up has made a huge difference to our stress levels. God was definitely watching over MLGB on the road too. She managed to get stopped without any problems, didn’t lose control of her van, and a Bureau of Land Management officer sat his car behind her with his lights on for an hour to ensure that drivers kept clear.
In this case, all’s well that ends well. I just have to put in some extra hours to get everything back up to speed and do some short-term belt tightening. I didn’t need to go to the range for the next couple of months anyway, right? In the meantime, anyone want to buy some Forza 5 choral music? Maybe a Matrix: Online magazine?