A few months ago, my wife and I attended Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. I must admit that I was completely surprised that my wife was interested in going at all. Don’t get me wrong, when I was working 100 hours a week at E&Y, she paid all of the bills and made sure we keep our credit in decent shape. She does not, however, have the passion for personal finance and investing that I do. When she suggested that we attend, I jumped all over that idea and ran with it.

Following Dave’s baby steps, we quickly established our “baby” emergency fund of $1,000. Good luck was with us while we then started to attack our debt. Within the next three months, we had paid off $7,000 in consumer debt, leaving only my student loan and our mortgage left. The life started happened…. AGAIN!

Both of our cars had issues, my Silky Terrier needed $500 worth of medical care and the refrigerator died. All valid emergencies, but needless to say, our emergency fund really took a hit. Currently, it sits pathetically low, haunting my dreams and basically just stressing me out.

This is not the environment to be short in the cash department.

Last night, as my wife and I had one of our weekly budget meetings, we discussed the “state” of our e-fund. I realized something that had never occured to me previously. To my wife, an emergency fund equates to safety. Without it, she feels out of control and scared. I cannot imagine how she must have felt when we were making a combined $25,500 and living off our credit cards just to survive.

With that being said, we are going to work on fully funding our emergency find over the next 12 months. Obviously, the first goal is to get it back to $1,000 and then build upon it from there. Ultimately, we need to establish a fund that would cover us for at least 6 months, should something happen to my job.

I am not going to get another job. The time I spend with my family is much too important, plus with the number of hours I work at my current job, I am not sure that I could find the time if I wanted to. I will, however, continue to write for eHow and Today. Both sites are producing nicely and I expect them to grow significantly over the next 12 months. I have also started tinkering with article marketing and affiliate sales, with limited results.

Do you have a fully funded emergency fund? Does your spouse feel more secure because of it? Drop me a comment and let me hear from you!

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