Comments on: Suze’s Advice Revisited: Increase Emergency Funds Pay Debt Minimums

By: SP_

SP_ — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:42:08 +0000

This is a good debate, because there is no easy answer. If you have a 1 week emergency fund and a lot of debt to pay off, any answer you come up with leaves something lacking.

You have to start somewhere though, and I'd personally do 6 months, then debt.

By: Fabulously Broke

Fabulously Broke — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:55:12 +0000

Awesome points!!! I did a whole post in response to this, more coherent than my tweets (LOL),... Located here: Should we just save for 8 months of emergencies and pay our debt minimums?

By: twiggers

twiggers — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:02:59 +0000

I'm choosing to ignore her advice. I started with 67K in debt and got down to 12K in 7 months. Haven't done much to tackle debt in the last 7-8 months because I was concentrating on saving tons of money for a major cross-country move. That money is now saved and we're back to tackling the CC debt….especially since the company just tried to double our interest rate (we called and got it lowered back down). I'm not taking any chances. In addition, I'm trying to sell a home that I'm probably going to lose about 10-15K on, and I need to save for that loss.
I have a secure contracted position (unless the National institute of Health goes out of business) and DH can collect unemployment for 13 months and that will more than cover all of our expenses.
So yea, we'll continue to throw all money at debt (credit card, pay off a vehicle that we need to sell, and then house loss) and then save for an EF.
I know lots won't agree with that strategy, but it's been working so far!

By: Lys

Lys — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:49:09 +0000

This is a great article. It really gives a gal something to think about. Thanks!