My SHINY Nickels

Live Smart. Save Money. Retire Early.

Thrift Stores Rule. But Don’t Buy The Underpants.

By:

Out of our four kids, there’s just the one boy. (Poor kid, surrounded in older sisters.) And he’s all boy. Dirt. Football. Boogers.

But even with all the dirt, football and boogers, you wanna know what’s super awesome about having a boy?

I can shop for his clothes anywhere I want, and without him present. 

The girls? That’s a different story.

Me: I bought this cute pink sweater for you today.
Girl Child: That’s not pink. That’s fuchsia. I don’t wear fuchsia anymore.
Me: You wore fuchsia yesterday.
Girl Child: I know. That was yesterday.

Clothes shopping with the girls requires large amounts of time, coupled with regularly scheduled 1/2 hour breaks, and a background in negotiation tactics.

With little dude, as long as there is nothing pink or ruffle-y involved, he’ll wear it.

So every fall and spring, just before the heat of summer and cold of winter hits Northern California, I make a stop at some of the nicer thrift stores in town to see if there are any good deals to be had before I head to the department stores to round out the seasonal wardrobe.

[Side note: Some folks are really freaked out by thrift stores. I was too, until I realized that the clothes they sell come from people like…me. I donate clothing to charities all the time, and where does it end up? Thrift stores. And I’m picky…I only visit the clean, organized ones.]

But this time, I scored big. In one trip, to the first store.

I found 5 pairs of name-brand basketball pants in excellent condition, and 5 name-brand t-shirts, all for the grand total of…

$32.33

It’s good stuff too…Puma, Quiksilver, O’Neill, Aeropostale, Adidas.

That’s an ENTIRE WEEK’S worth of clothes for a little over $30!

Moral of the story?  Thrift stores are awesome.

May the odds of finding something awesome be ever in your favor.  And avoid the underpants.

Do you shop at thrift stores? Like them?  Hate them?  Have you found anything amazing, or…um, interesting?

Your Starbucks Habit is NOT Why You’re Broke

By:

I’ve just about had it.  If I see one more article/blog post/tweet telling me that I need to give up my foo-foo coffee habit in the name of finance, I’m gonna…well, I don’t actually know what I’d do. But enough already!

There’s always somebody whining about Starbucks.  It’s wasteful.  It’s indulgent.  It’s unnecessary spending.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  But it’s about time the budget nazis get back behind the scope of their blame cannon and pick a better target.  (Wow, it felt good to get that out.)

Starbucks (or Peets or Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf or…) is hardly the reason why our piggy banks are empty.

If you’re broke, should you be indulging in foo-foo coffee? Probably not.  But is that the reason you’re broke?  Probably not.

We’re neck-deep in oversized houses and overpriced cars, and we’re worried about what coffee we’re drinking?  Why are we so afraid to tell each other the hard truth?  We’re spending too much in every area of our life.  Plain and simple.

It’s like we’re walking among the wreckage of a tornado, and starting the clean-up by dusting what’s left of the mantel.

The truth?  I enjoy a well-crafted cup of foo-foo coffee all the time.  Sometimes I’m on my own, with just my laptop and a latte.  Or sometimes I meet up with a friend and have a long-overdue catch up over espresso.  I love it all.  The aroma, the soft adult contemporary background music, everything.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The key is to find what really makes you HAPPY, what gives you the most PLEASURE, and spend more loosely in those areas.  Then cut back on the big stuff that doesn’t make you blissfully content.  You’ll find you have money you didn’t think existed. Does the extra square footage you “had to have” make you smile each morning?  Six months in, does the new car bring you true joy?

Once you start prioritizing your finances according to what’s really important to you, you’ll have money to buy your latte and drink it too.

I Was Just in a Car Accident. And I Feel Fantastic.

By:

Yes you read that right.  Yesterday at about 5:19pm Pacific Standard Time, I plowed into the back of the car in front of me.  I claim only about 75% fault on this one.  (For the record, who accelerates into an intersection, and then suddenly comes to a smoking-tire, screeching halt???  Sorry, but that just had to be said.)

The other driver was in a steel cage otherwise known as a Jeep Commander, and I was in the Mercedes.  In case you’ve forgotten from my earlier post, my sweet little car looked like this the day I bought it.  Sigh.

June 2009 — The day we bought the Mercedes. I’m not sure what I was attempting to do with my leg here, but I guess that’s what I thought people did when they posed with their new car. Instead, I look like I’m missing a leg and that my torso is super-glued to the door frame. Fail.

The steel bumper of the Jeep ended up with a few tiny scratches, while my front grill crumpled in like a piece of tin foil.  It doesn’t look too bad, but something under my hood started smoking and I distinctly heard a “hiss” sound.  Hmmm.

So after getting out of our cars and doing the whole awkward “so-hey-our-cars-kinda-touched-each-other” back and forth, we pulled over and did an information switcheroo.  Thankfully, no one in either car was injured; my airbags didn’t even deploy.  And, the other driver was actually pretty nice and normal, so that’s a +1.

We parted ways, and the first thing I did was call my husband to tell him the news.

Then I called the insurance company.

The sweet lady over at Esurance laughed at my 75% self-proclaimed at-fault assessment.  I don’t know, maybe I thought between my sparkling personality and my insistence that the driver in front of me was a moron for accelerating and braking would help my cause.  Apparently not.

So, big surprise, I’m officially at fault, blah, blah, blah.  That’s not the reason I’m telling you all of this.

What struck me about this whole darn thing was that my first thought (after determining there were no injuries, of course) was that I had no financial worries.  $1,000 deductible?  No problem.  Replace my car?  We can pay cash for a new one.   Getting in an accident is already stressful enough.  Knowing you have an emergency fund removes that extra unnecessary layer of anxiety.

The only part of this that is a wee bit sucky, is that this is my very first accident.  Ever.  Tomorrow is my 36th birthday, which would have meant 20 years of driving accident-free.  20 YEARS!  Oh well.  Guess I’ll start that clock over again.

My point is that money in the bank is more than just…well, money in the bank.  It gives you the gift of calm.  It gives you the gift of sleeping well at night.  So within minutes of the accident, I already had a pep in my step, and a grin on my face.  Considering what had just happened, I felt fantastic.

So do your future self a favor, and make sure you have an emergency fund.  And, drive safe my friends.

MyShinyNickels.com RE-LAUNCH!

By:

If you haven’t already noticed, the blog has gone through a re-birth of sorts.  A few days ago, amid the eery midnight glow of my laptop and with my fingers ground down to bloody stumps, I rolled out a whole new look for MyShinyNickels.com.  What triggered this re-decorating of my little internet home?  Grab a chair, and I’ll fill you in.

It all began Thursday of last week.  My husband and I were headed to a financial blogging convention called FinCon, held this year in New Orleans.  I’m a relatively new-ish blogger, and until now it’s been a little side hobby of mine.  But Johnny over at JohnnyMoneyseed.com convinced me to give FinCon a try; he promised it would be extremely inspiring at best and a really fun 3-day long party at worst.

Sign me up, Scotty (er, Johnny).

To keep this short and sweet, the conference was so much more than I anticipated.  I left feeling rejuvenated, but a bit challenged.  Many times during those few days we were asked why we write.  What we want out of this still-strange concept called ‘blogging’.  For a while it’s been ‘that-thing-I-do-at-night-when-I-have-a-spare-moment’ kind of deal, but I’ve realized that has to change.

This blog is my outlet, and the work I do here is something I’m extremely passionate about.  And yet I was letting my work-life-blog balance go all whack-a-doodle.  Work?  Not much I can do about that.  But life?  There is plenty of wiggle room there.  I needed to start setting boundaries.  Boundaries that would allow this blogging passion to become a larger part of my life.  My readers deserve it, and so do I.

So before I’d even boarded the plane back here to Sacramento, my cerebral cortex was buzzing.  Soon I was scribbling notes on the backs of pamphlets in the airport, and even those cute little Southwest Airlines beverage napkins were no match for my chicken-scratch frenzy.  I’m sure I drove my husband crazy during that 4-hour trip…

Me: “So, hey hey hey, I have this idea.  I’ll change out the header image…”

Him: [looking up from his iPad] “Hmmm, sounds good.”

[5 minutes later]

Me: “Hey babe, what do you think about re-focusing the…”

Him:  [looking up again from his iPad] “Sure, that would work.”

[5 minutes later]

Me: “What if I changed the navigation of the site so that it…”

Him:  [s-l-o-w-l-y craning his neck away from his iPad] “Yup. Sounds like a plan, dear.”

This pattern repeated itself for the remainder of our flight, and the poor guy was patient the entire time.   Needless to say, I’ve made a lot of changes, and there is plenty more to come.  A blogger’s work is never done, they say.  [Not sure if that’s something anyone has actually said, but it sounded good.]

My hope is that even with this blog getting a new look and moving in a new (but similar!) direction, my loyal readers will follow along with me, while new ones join in.  In the past this has been a ‘get-out-of-debt-and-retire-early’ blog.  But if I’m really true to myself and all the things I’m excited about, this blog is destined to be a whole lot more than that.  My favorite low-cost recipes, super-cool life “hacks”, simple living, lots of juicy DIY projects, traveling on the cheap, and of course the stories and real-life blunders (enjoy a sample here) that my readers have come to rely on.

And sometimes God’s timing of things is eerily perfect.  As I was pondering the whole work-life-blog balance this afternoon, something very fitting caught my ear.  The television had been turned down to a dull rumble in the background, but I heard Steve Harvey (of all people) quietly say, “Work is what you’re paid to do.  Your calling is what you were made to do.”  That’s precisely how I feel about this little blog I’ve created.  Showing others how to pursue a fulfilling and blissful life while being financially responsible is what I feel called to do.  

And who knew…Steve Harvey may be the next Dalai Lama.

 

You know it’s funny.  Don’t judge me.

I Get It. We’re Different. Let’s Move On, Shall We?

By:

You’re cruising along on your sweet journey to financial independence…your debt is paid off, investment accounts are slowly swelling with the passing of every month, and even the flowers smell a little bit sweeter. Despite your commitment to live frugally, life is good. Super, crazy, wonderfully good.

But the truth is that not everybody in your circle of family and friends will “get it.” They will look at your frugal lifestyle and pity you, imagining that you’re suffering daily under the constraints of driving older cars or living in a house with one bathroom. “I could never live like that,” they proclaim.

That’s fine with me. Don’t live like that. I never asked you to. I won’t apologize for our choice to live in a sweet little 1,000 square-foot, 3-bedroom, 1-bath house. The occasional negative comment only serves to magnify how very differently we view money, life and happiness.

Our humble abode...and we love it.

Our humble abode…and we love it.

And while I’d like to think of myself as emotionally strong, I’m not. (Sorry to blow the superhero image I know you had of me.) I experienced this criticism first-hand just a few weeks ago, and because I deeply care about the person that criticized me, it stung all the more. At first I was hurt. Then I was confused. I didn’t understand why a friend would openly poke fun at me, because I had chosen to live a less material life. Then I finally rounded the corner, and…stopped caring.

I’ll live my life the way I want, they can live their life the way they want, and we can all go back to discussing the latest Pinterest fail, the NFL pre-season or funny cat videos.

We all have priorities, and every lifestyle choice has a corresponding trade-off. Some choose to spend their dollars on extra bathrooms and square footage, knowing (or not knowing) that choice will delay retirement by 20 years. Others choose to live somewhere that just meets their needs, realizing that retirement can be just around the corner.

To each his own.

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”
— Henry David Thoreau

Fist bump to you, Mr. Thoreau. I couldn’t have said it better.

 

My Top Secret Project is Complete!

By:

SMALLCoverArt JPEGWell, it’s official.  The top secret project I’ve been working on lately (instead of posting on this blog!) is finally finished.  After countless hours and far too much coffee, my book LIVE SMART. ELIMINATE DEBT. BUILD WEALTH. is now available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble!

I’ve been playing around with an outline for some time now, but a few months ago I knew it was the right time to start really pulling it together. While my blog certainly tells some highlights of our financial journey, and a few frugal guidelines we live by, it doesn’t even come close to revealing everything.

There were plenty of emotional and financial stages we moved through on our way from $40,000 in debt to that first $100,000 in savings.  So I wrote about our entire journey, and then pulled together a step-by-step guide outlining exactly what we did to start living an optimized life, get out of debt and on to building wealth.

If you didn’t already know, I am pretty passionate about this stuff, and the truth is that my blog only gets the message so far.  Many people who read personal finance blogs are already at least knee-deep into their financial education, either refining what they already know, or are “experts” themselves.

That’s not my target audience.  I’m really trying to reach the “former” me.  The millions of  people that work for their money, spend it, and start over again.  Or even worse,  those that spend all the money they have as well as money they don’t have.  If they only knew that spending their money and resources trying to appear successful actually has the opposite effect.

I’ll always be thankful for the wake-up call that turned our finances around, but I can’t help but wonder where we’d be if the light bulb had come on even earlier…five years ago…ten years ago.  I’ll never know, and if I did, it might be horrifically depressing to see where we “could have been.”  So I don’t dwell on it.

In starting this blog and writing this book, my intent has always been the same; that by sharing our financial transformation, it will inspire others to do the same.

Frugal? Yay. Unethical? Boo.

By:

So it’s been a while, eh?  I admit I’ve been squirrelin’ around with some side projects.  One in particular is a big one, that I hope to have wrapped up and ready in a few days, a week at the most.  It’s pretty big news (for me), but I’m going to keep it under wraps for now.  (I know, I know, I hate it when people hint at something and then don’t tell you.  Or put some cryptic status on Facebook like, “My life is over.”  Then crickets.  I really don’t want to be that person; I promise I’ll divulge more information soon.)

But let me get around to my real reason for posting.  I need to vent for a moment, do you mind?  Thanks.  During an afternoon lunch with my momma a few weeks ago, I casually glanced around the restaurant as I waited for my order to be called.  I noticed a man sitting to my left with a water cup.  Filled to the brim with…soda.  I know people do this.  He’s hardly the only one who does.  In fact, I’ve dined with people who have done the exact same thing, but it always makes me get a pit in my stomach.  It’s just that it’s, well, STEALING.

It bothers me so much, that over the years, every time I’ve witnessed this “unethical frugality” it’s seared into my memory.  Especially the memorable ones.

Like the time I went to an all-you-can-eat place here in town called Fresh Choice, and sat down near a couple who were finishing up their meal.  At least I thought they were finished.  Until the man left and returned a short time later with an overflowing plate of muffins, pizza and cookies.  But the next part is where I had to hold up my jaw, to keep it from hitting the floor.   This guy pulled out a top hat (Yes! A top hat!) out from under the table.  He lined it with paper napkins, and swiftly shoved the cornucopia of food into the hat.  He then bent over, lowered his head into the hat, wiggled it on snuggly, slowly stood up, and WALKED OUT.  Like Abraham Lincoln, with a week’s worth of food on his ‘noggin.

…or the time my husband and I were at Taco Bell, when a lady in a shiny new Range Rover pulled in to the parking lot.  She walked into the restaurant with five kids.  The woman orders ONE large drink and 5 water cups, and then proceeds to fill the kids “water” cups many times over.  She must have filled up that large soda 3 or 4 times before they left.

…or the person who will remain unnamed that keeps a fast-food cup in their car and stops in for “free” refills for months after purchase.

…or the person who will also remain unnamed that steals the towels from hotels, clears out the sweetener packets at the coffee station, and stuffs rolls of toilet paper into their bag.

One last one, okay?   The friend of mine who purchased a space heater at the beginning of December, and then returned it to the store at the end of February, just before the 90-day return period was up.  She was bragging to me about her “free” space heater. Aye, aye, aye.

The craziest part?  Some of these people actually think they’re some sort of frugal genius, who has found a “creative” way to save money.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME???  You’re not saving money!  You’re not “creative”!  You’re a straight-up THIEF!  I get being frugal, of course.  I’m all about saving myself a few bucks.  But if you’re so cheap that you’re crossing over into the land of the unethical, that’s just WRONG.  Does this bother anyone else?

The Graham Cracker Effect

By:

graham-crackersIf you’re anything like me, the more you have your grubby hands all over your money, the more likely that money will find it’s way to Amazon.com or BestBuy or Target.  So the goal should be to stop “touching” it so darn much, and activate a sort of financial cruise control, if you will.

When we started really putting our savings into overdrive (yes, I’m trying to use as many car metaphors as I can in this post), we started out with a whole lot of manual transferring and moving (there I go again).  Payday would come and I would see that big juicy number in our account.  But in the back of my mind, I knew that number was about to get much smaller.  I still had to transfer to all of our different investment accounts.

No matter how motivated you are to put money away, there’s still something psychologically unnerving about entering a large dollar amount and then pressing “TRANSFER”.  In the early debt-free days, as we learned how to start saving our money, I fully admit it wasn’t always easy pressing that “TRANSFER” button.

“Yowzers, that’s a chunk of money.  I could have totally purchased two flights to Hawaii with that money.  Or a new convertible top for my car.  Or built a new patio cover for the back porch.”  Or I could…Or I could…Hrmph.

That’s when I finally realized that I needed to get everything AUTOMATED.  A hands-free, no-touch, never-saw-it-in-the-first-place kind of setup.  So that’s what we did.  And yes, it was a little bit scary.  We decided to start by directing a portion of our paychecks towards maxing out our 401k ($17,500 x 2) and Roth IRA ($5,500 x 2) contributions, and see how that felt.  But with just that first step, we knew it meant we were putting away $46,000 a year that we previously weren’t saving, so we felt pretty bad@$$ with just that alone.  We got everything set up, filled out various HR forms online and pressed “SUBMIT”.

Then…I started worrying.

“Are we going too far, too fast?”

“Are we going to feel broke all the time?”

But that first pay period passed, and as unbelievable as it sounds, we really didn’t miss it.  Yes, our final net pay was much lower. Of course. But like with many other things, you work with what you’ve got, you spend what you have.  In fact, I like to call it the graham cracker effect*.

 

* Mr.Nickels l-o-v-e-s him some graham crackers.  I used to buy a box of graham crackers on random occasion, and he would eat them at a rather normal pace.  The box would be gone in about a week and a half.  Then we started shopping at Costco. I found the exact same graham crackers in a 4-box package, for slightly less money than I was spending on the singles I was buying at our local grocery store.  So I plopped them in my cart.  Now, standard logic would tell you that if 1 box lasted approximately 1.5 weeks, then 4 boxes should last roughly 6 weeks.  But that’s not what happened.

grahamlarge

This is two weeks worth of graham crackers at our house…ok, I’m exaggerating. A little.

 

Apparently, the consumption rate of graham crackers increases in direct proportion to their current availability in the pantry.  In other words, the more we have, the more he eats.  We ran out of ALL 4 boxes of graham crackers in just 3 weeks.

 

My point is that many of us have a tendency to spend what we have, whether it’s a big amount or a small amount.  If you give yourself $500 to spend for the month, you’ll find a way to spend it.  If you give yourself $1,000 to spend, you’d find a way to spend that in a month as well.  So it’s time to push yourself.  If you currently don’t contribute to a 401k/403b/457/TSP/IRA, start.  Begin with a percentage you think you can handle, or if you get a company match on your 401k (my company matches the first 6%, for example), that should be your minimum.  Then sit back and see if you miss it.  I can almost guarantee you won’t.

Guest Post by Mr. Nickels: If Only Marty McFly Had a 401k

By:

back-to-the-future

[Every once in a while, Mr. Nickels likes to take over the keyboard. Enjoy!]

— Mrs. Nickels

 

When I first began what would become a 20-year career in the photofinishing industry, I remember looking at compounding interest charts.  The charts came with the literature about contributing to the company retirement plan. I specifically remember looking at a chart very similar to the one below.  The concept of compounding interest was intriguing. “Ben” only invests a total of $16,000 between the ages of 19 and 26. He ends his career with $2.3 Million. Arthur doesn’t start investing until he is 27, and invests a total of $78,000 until his retirement at age 65. He ends his career with $1.5 Million.

Recap?  Ben invests $62,000 less, but ends his career with $756,830 more than Arthur.  All because Ben started early.  Amazing.

benarthur

 

I did end up contributing to my 401k, but it was more out of obligation, than desire. I didn’t act on this new information with passion. Why not? I’m not really sure.  Looking back, I’m fairly sure that if I had made a similar chart using my own numbers…what I could have saved, what interest rates I could have realistically expected, what I needed to retire…I may have acted. Would my life be different? I don’t know.

Me at the beginning of my career, circa 1986

Do I have regrets? Not at all!  I am where I need to be. I’m a sci-fi nerd and have seen enough time travel episodes to know that a small change in my past can drastically change my future (sorry, off topic).

I admit I have made some HUGE financial mistakes in my past. I have also made some very smart moves. It all led to where I am right now. This post is about finding the motivation to change your future. But, just like history class, we can often look to our past for clues. So, what motivates me? What is it in me that makes me give up so much now to invest for a better future? I began to think of some goals I accomplished in the past. What motivated me to reach these goals?

 

The Marathon

It’s a Sunday afternoon in early December, 2011. The family and I are at my favorite Mexican restaurant, enjoying a few tacos. Out the window, we watch as the back-of-the-pack stragglers running the California International Marathon start to pass by.  The wheels in my head started spinning…I want to do that!  Back in high school, I hated running.  So why did I want to run a marathon? I think it was just the fact that not many people can run 26.2 miles.

When I first started running, I couldn’t run half a mile without stopping. I kept at it. Within a week or so, I finally ran a full mile non-stop. Pure joy! My first goal was accomplished. Soon, I was running three miles, three days a week. By that summer I was ready to start training for the marathon coming in December. I went online and found a conservative training plan and started the 18 weeks of progressively longer runs in preparation to run 26 miles + 385 yards.

That December morning in 2012 finally came, and in the middle of one of the worst storms of the year.  The rain was blowing sideways as I exited the shuttle bus. What am I thinking? The gun went off and I crossed the starting line. In the pouring rain, my emotions got the best of me at the half mile marker.

I was actually running a marathon.

Me, the one that hated running, was running with 8,000 other people toward the finish line 26 miles away. It was a once-in-a-lifetime feeling. At the halfway point, I was feeling really good. My legs felt great, I was breathing steady, and I was confident I would finish strong. Then the bolt of pain hit me. I had pulled a quad muscle at mile 17. But I was still going to finish! I limped, walked and jogged my way to the finish line. It took everything in me to get there, but I reached my goal. The rain was gone and the sun was shining by the time I finished 5 1/2 hours later.

What was my motivation?

marathon

 

 

Climbing Half Dome

I’ve been to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite three times, but I will never forget that first trip. It’s about 7 1/4 miles of uphill hiking to the base of the dreaded cables that lead to the summit. There were people standing at the base, refusing to climb those cables. I admit, they are a little overwhelming and daunting to look at. From the bottom it looks like a vertical death trap. But after all the energy it took to get that far, there was no way I wasn’t going to finish.

ry=400

The dreaded cables at Half Dome in Yosemite

I put on my gloves, grabbed the cables and started the climb. About every four feet there are two-by-fours across the path so you can rest. As it got steeper, I remember thinking, “just one step at a time…stay safe for my kids…I can’t die here.” So with each vertical step, I said the names of my daughters….. Kelly…… Lindsay……Kelly…….Lindsay, all the way to the top. It seemed like hours to get there. Fifty to seventy-five people caterpillaring their way up, stopping every four feet to rest for a few minutes. Finally, I was there and the views were spectacular. Worth all the effort and fear to get there.

What was my motivation?

halfdome

My first trip to the top of Half Dome. This is one of my favorite pictures.

Side note: I would love to climb Mt. Everest, but my wife assures me I will be a single man upon my return.  [Mrs. Nickels’ Editorial Comment:  For the record, he wouldn’t be a single man when he came home.  My fear is that I’d be a single woman when he DIDN’T come home. So there.]

 

So why am I only now, at this stage of my life, using my money wisely? What changed in my mind?

The only difference between then and now is a GOAL, a PLAN, and a DEEP DESIRE to reach that goal. The biggest motivator for me was seeing on paper a plan to save with an end date just seven years from now. I believe if I’d had that information in my early 20’s I would have had the motivation to retire that much sooner. But I’ll never really know. However, now I know what we want and what it’s going to take to get us there. Everyone is motivated in different ways. Look at other parts of your life where you have succeeded in completing a goal. What was your motivation? In the two stories above, I had a goal in my head, a desire to accomplish that goal, and a clear, no questions asked, plan to get there.

So what motivates you?  Find your motivation and use it to change your life for the better.

Reader Stories: RELIEF is spelled E-M-E-R-G-E-N-C-Y F-U-N-D

By:

emerfundI got a text from a friend the other day.  Her and I have bonded over all matters financial, and she is recently back from vacation.  Her text said “I love our emergency fund”

Hmmmm….[interest has officially been peaked at this point]

She went on to tell me that her husband had an “oops” with the garage door, and another “oops” in the rental car while they were on vacation. Poor guy, these two things were practically back-to-back.  She said her husband was feeling really guilty about the money it was going to cost to fix those things.  But what she said next is what really struck me.  “I wasn’t mad at him at all for either one.  What a relief.  Resentment avoided because of a simple emergency fund.”

It got me thinking.  How many times do people argue with their spouse/significant other because of an unexpected expense?  You hear about it all the time.  Money is by and large the #1 issue couples fight about.  When something unexpected happens, is the argument really about the expense itself, or does it really stem from the stress over not having money to pay for it?

Mr Nickels and I have very few arguments, but when I think back to the few that we had prior to our financial awakening, most were indeed about unexpected expenses.  Several years ago we had an issue that caused our auto insurance to increase by nearly $100 per month.  We (thought) we didn’t have a dime to spare at the time (in reality we were just spending all our dimes on housing and cars), and now we had to come up with another $100 in our monthly budget.  I got upset, my husband became irritable, and next thing we knew we were in a heated argument over…the auto insurance.  Our precarious financial situation was causing discord in our relationship.  It wasn’t about why the auto insurance increased, it was that we didn’t have the money to pay for it. Eventually we calmed down enough to look at the situation logically, and without emotion.  But the whole argument could have been avoided.

If that same scenario were to occur today, sure it would be irritating, but it wouldn’t throw us into an emotional tailspin like it did a few years ago.

Going back again to my friend who sent me the text, she’s still in her early 20’s, but financially mature beyond her years.  She seems to understand my “Live Smart, Save Money, Retire Early” philosophy.  I’ll call her my Nickel from another Pickle.  (Ok…here’s where I thought I would be clever and come up with a rhyme.  That was the first thing that came out, but as I started typing, it became apparent how awkward that sounds.)  *crickets*

Getting to my point, she’s figured things out that some people can take a lifetime, if ever, to understand.  Things happen.  People make mistakes.  But knowing they could cover those expenses (and without going into debt!) kept her from feeling resentful or frustrated at her husband.  In fact, what she described was RELIEF.

An emergency fund is more than just unused cash sitting in an account, taunting you.  It’s a safety net.  A psychological security blanket.  For those of us that have them, it helps us sleep better at night and keeps financial harmony in our relationships.  Emergency Fund = Less Fighting Over Money

Do you have an emergency fund?  If you don’t, that’s the first thing you should do when you finish reading this.  Sit down and figure out how you can get one started.  You may have to get ninja-like on your finances to do it, but $1,000 should be the absolute minimum.  Then, if you’ve got debt (yes, that includes auto loans), pay that off next.  Then aim for a fully funded emergency account.  I suggest $5,000, which should cover most major catastrophes that come your way.

It’s hard to save money.  I know that.  But by saving even just a little bit, consistently, you’ll soon have a sweet little pile of cash.  And unexpected expenses really aren’t unexpected at all.  It’s not IF something will happen, but WHEN.  That little emergency fund could save you some tears, some stress and possibly even…your relationship.