But Is It Really an Emergency?

This month alone, I had to buy three new tires (plus a few other auto repairs), call the plumber, the electrician, and the pest control company (thanks to a squirrel who decided our attic was a great place to settle down)! When you stack all of that together, it can start to feel like an emergency, or at the very least, a really bad month.

So why didn’t it break my budget or my spirit?

Let’s back up and talk about what an emergency fund is actually for.

An emergency fund is what you’d live off of in the event of a loss of income. It’s based on your bare minimum monthly expenses if your paycheck stopped. The general advice used to be three months of expenses, but these days it’s more realistic to aim for 9–12 months, given how long it can take to find a new job. (Don’t worry if you’re not there, it can take a long time to build to that amount.)

At its core, your emergency fund is a loss-of-income fund.

There are, of course, other true emergencies. A family crisis that requires you to book a last-minute flight. A medical emergency. Significant, unexpected damage to your home. These are situations where you don’t have the luxury of time or planning.

But what about everything else?

Car repairs. Home maintenance. Kids’ activities. Annual subscriptions. Holiday spending. These aren’t emergencies even if they feel like it in the moment. They’re irregular expenses. And while we may not know exactly when they’ll show up or how much they’ll cost, we do know they’re coming.

Sometimes what feels like an emergency is really just a place where we didn’t have a plan yet.

So what do most people do?
Put it on a credit card and deal with it later?
Dip into savings and then try to refill it?
Pull from investments and hope it all works out?

There’s a simpler, more peaceful way to handle this called sinking funds. Sinking funds are just dedicated savings accounts for those irregular-but-inevitable expenses. When you set these up, you’re making small, consistent decisions ahead of time so future-you doesn’t have to scramble.

Your emergency fund protects you from the unexpected and urgent. Your sinking funds prepare you for the expected but irregular.

Here’s what I’ve seen over and over again with my clients: when they have both a solid emergency fund and sinking funds in place, everything changes. Those “bad months” stop feeling like crises. The stress goes down. The decision-making gets easier.

Imagine your hot water heater goes out and the money is already sitting in your home fund. 

Or summer camp registration comes around and you’re not scrambling to figure it out. 

Or your friends plan a last-minute beach trip and you can say yes without guilt because you planned for fun, too!

That’s what this is really about.

It’s not about having everything perfectly figured out. It’s about creating a system that supports you, even when life is unpredictable (and sometimes involves squirrels in the attic)!

If you’re ready to get started, I’ve put together a simple guide to help you set up your own sinking funds. You can find it on my Financial Clarity Tools page.

And if you’re feeling like your finances have been one long “emergency” after another, you don’t have to keep handling it on your own. A great next step might be a free 15-minute Q&A call. It’s not a financial review or a deep dive into your numbers, just a simple conversation to see if coaching would be a good fit for you and your needs.

Remember: the goal isn’t perfection. It’s having a plan that helps you feel steady, prepared, and a little more at peace with your money.