Funding Your Emergency Fund

If you're just starting FPU, your first "baby step" is to fund your emergency fund with $1000.  (This is so you don't add to your debt, while paying down debt.)

When we first started FPU, saving $1000 seemed almost impossible.  While $1000 is not life-changing, it's nothing to sneeze at either.  If we could save $1000 in a month, why would we be in debt?  I thought it would take us 2 or 3 months to fund our emergency fund.

So, I was shocked when we were able to raise $1000 in less than a month.  I know...in a matter of 4 weeks!!  And this is how we did it...

1.  We held a yard sale.

Credit

Now, I am not a fan of yard sales.  Holding or going.  As much as I love saving, I hate haggling and being haggled with.  So I piggybacked.  One of our friends held a yardsale.  I took my stuff over, let them price and sell it.  I had zero stress and just got to pick up the cash.

2.  We sold excess furniture online.

Look around your house and I bet you can find at least two pieces of unused furniture that are in fairly nice enough condition to sell.  I was shocked when I listed a coffee table, end tables, and a dining room set on Craigslist and they all sold.  (It does help to be in a college town.)

3.  I sold everything I could on ebay.

I love purses.  (Before I collected shoes, I collected purses.)  I sold at least half my collection on eBay.  Along with candles, decorations, cookbooks, luggage, makeup, kitchen items...

Anything still in the box, with tags, or unopened, got sold. 

4.  We paid the minimum payment on EVERYthing.

This was the hardest for us.  We had always paid extra on everything.  (And yet, still grew deeper in debt.  Bad math, I know.)  We cut all our payments back to just the minimum and banked the difference.  Including our credit card.  It still turns my stomack to think about.

5.  We cut our variable expenses by half.

Heard of the rice & beans budget?  That is what you're supposed to live off while you're getting out of debt.  The first month, we just had the "rice budget."  I'll admit it, we ate ramen for dinner more than once.  We spent $0 on groceries other than absolute bare necesseties like milk.  The rest, went into savings.

These are only 5 options, I didn't even touch on second jobs, consulting income, etc.   $1000 can seem daunting, but it's doable.  And there is a direct corellation between your determination and your success. 

Hmm...maybe we should do it again...I could sure use some new shoes! 

Just kidding.





Maybe.