Our Emergency Fund is Fully Funded!

My friends, we have finally reached our goal of savings in our emergency fund! High fives all around! This goal sure took its sweet little time getting here… here’s a rundown of the last few years’ unexpected expenses as we’ve tried to save for this goal:

March 2010: Debt paid off! Woohoo! Started savings for the emergency fund.

August 2010: Got engaged! Used a portion of my savings for wedding deposits, etc. The rest of our savings that year went to pay for the wedding.

April 2011: Got married!

May 2011: My car broke down. Bought a Mazda for $12,000 financing some and using savings for the rest.

July 2011: J’s car broke down. Womp womp. Used our emergency savings to buy a $2,800 Honda Civic.

December 2011: Paid off Mazda!

January 2012: Found out J had a small student loan to pay off.

March 2012: Finished paying off the loan.

June 29: J’s car needed a new radiator.

July 15: Finally, finally reached our savings goal!

So what’s next? We’re now going to start saving for a house and increase the amount we contribute to our Roth IRAs. We aren’t sure how long we will need to save for a home, but would love to move in somewhere in the next two years. Ideally we would save 20% for a house deposit, but in this market we could feel comfortable with 10% since the rates are so great. Afterwards, we will increase our emergency fund whenever we have a house and kids, but for now this is more than we should need for any unexpected event that we may face.

But I have to remind myself not to hurry on to the next goal and bask in the accomplishment that we finally made it to this giant (to us) financial mark. Yipee!

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PS – What is your saving goal right now? Are you focusing on paying down debt or saving? How long did it take you to fund your emergency savings? How long did it take you to save for a house?

(photo credit)