{"id":7851,"date":"2014-09-14T19:18:13","date_gmt":"2014-09-14T23:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=7851"},"modified":"2019-04-10T07:27:00","modified_gmt":"2019-04-10T11:27:00","slug":"tapping-the-emergency-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=7851","title":{"rendered":"Tapping the Emergency Fund"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have blogged in the past<\/a> about how important it is to have an emergency fund for those situations that happen in life. And “those situations” seem to occur to homeowners more often than others.<\/p>\n

Two weeks ago, a huge tree in our backyard forest was struck by lightning. From the 150′ (46m) crown to its lowest trunk, the tree was destroyed. It literally exploded.<\/p>\n

The tree fell…
\n
\n…on other nearby trees, which also did some damage. However, we are very fortunate that the tree split sideways, and did not strike our house.<\/p>\n

However, the tree must be removed. It is so big, and some of it is still perched upon the branches of other tall, living trees, that I had to hire a tree service to cut it apart and remove it.<\/p>\n

Tree services aren’t cheap, but they know what they’re doing and they have the right equipment and skilled workers to handle the situation.<\/p>\n

My spouse and I did not plan for this to happen. Because the tree did not fall on the house, we have no insurance claim.<\/p>\n

However, when the bill is presented by the tree service company site manager, it will be easy for me to write a check and have him mark the bill “paid in full.”<\/p>\n

I’m not thrilled to shell out a lot of money for this unexpected expense. However, we have the savings in our household emergency fund just for situations like this. I do not have to borrow money from anyone, take out a loan, borrow against a credit card (at exorbitantly expensive rates), raid the retirement savings, or not hire the service. We can pay the bill and restore our yard to a safe and useable area again.<\/p>\n

Our emergency fund can cover well in excess of 12 months of our household’s expenses should our income stop or we encounter something catastrophic. <\/p>\n

If you are unsure how to figure out what you may require for an emergency fund, use this calculator, here. (Don’t worry, I will not see the results. This is a totally independent website.)<\/p>\n

What’s the condition of YOUR emergency fund? You never know when you need it.<\/p>\n

Life is short: plan for emergencies!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have blogged in the past about how important it is to have an emergency fund for those situations that happen in life. And “those situations” seem to occur to homeowners more often than others. Two weeks ago, a huge … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7851\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}