Emergency Funds are crucial
I just came home from my lab partner’s house where we were studying for tomorrow morning’s test. The study session was cut short when his daughter fell off the swingset and broke her arm. He’ll be sitting in the Emergency Room for several hours probably, and the mother had to leave work to meet them there.
This is the same lab partner who has urged me to take on student loans to pay for college, even though right now I don’t need to do that. His lackadaisical attitude towards debt makes me really wonder how they intend to pay for this emergency room trip. Do they have an emergency fund to cover this level of life’s emergencies? Or are getting hit with Murphy’s Law just because they don’t have an emergency fund?
As I mentioned before, Murphy’s Law clearly states, “Anything that can go wrong, will.” There also seems to be an i nverse correlation between “Murphy visits” and how much of an emergency fund you have socked away and saved up. Simply put, the bigger your emergency fund, the less Murphy visits you. If you don’t have an emergency fund, or don’t have much in your emergency fund, Murphy seems to love to come around and mess with you on a regular basis.
Now, this is a lot of speculation on my part…It really wasn’t my business to ask him how he planned to pay for the ER visit. Also, I was busy keeping the dad calm, calming the hurt baby, and finding a towel and wooden spoon to rig up a make-shift splint for the car ride to the hospital and the thought just didn’t occur to me until after I got home. But this is a harsh reminder to everyone: what would YOU do if you went out to your backyard to find your daughter’s forearm bent backwards? Or if someone ran the red light in front of you at 10 mph over the speed limit? Or a storm brought a huge tree limb down on the house? Do YOU have an emergency fund to take care of a significant Murphy visit? If the answer is “No” then I think you should start budgeting for that “rainy day,” because even a desert gets a good rainstorm from time to time!