Personal Finance Meltdown: Emergency Funds

Growing up in the rah-rah 90's Clinton Prosperity years; taking my first job and then always quickly being able to get another; it had never occurred to me that I may not be able to ever find work. However the past several years have been '˜unlike any other time since the Great Depression' or so the media talking heads have told me.

Whatever your feelings about that statement, times have been lean. Experts say that no matter the weather there should always be that safety net. Some amount of dollars squirreled away in an accessible form should the day ever come calling when you would need it.

Unfortunately I've been living in the me-now generation for far too long. I have just recently come face to face with the '˜no-work-now-what' existence and I've had to do whatever I need to in order to get by. It has been more than 4 years since I've had sustained full time employment.

Truth is, I don't have much emergency funds to speak of at all. The '˜recommend' number you hear being bandied about equates to some three to six months worth of '˜expenses' covered in some kind of untouched emergency fund. You know, in the safety deposit box, escrow account, passport savings; money it would be a pain to get to. I don't really have anything like that.

I do have some equities in the stock market which could be considered my emergency fund. However these investments are so far underwater that I'm nowhere near the break-even point. The very small amount of my brokerage account goes up and down but it's still down considerably.

I certainly know that I need to better provide for my wife and myself. We also need some emergency funds. My wife's computer crashed the other day so when she needs to navigate in ways her phone makes cumbersome, she shares my aging laptop.

From a more health-wise standpoint my wife needs her wisdom teeth removed. I also have some cavities which are just beginning to present themselves. I need new glasses, my wife needs better prescriptions for her asthma. But all that requires money; to get money you need jobs.

Neither of us have jobs so for now we just do without. We have spent too long following what '˜feels right for the moment' without thought for our long term future. That's going to change very soon. We are applying for jobs in several markets and the first one that comes calling, we're following the road that money takes us on.