One of the most important things about having your emergency fund is to decide why you need one. Everyone needs to have some sort of cushion to fall back on when times get rough but you still personalize it even more.

I decided to get my emergency fund after watching an episode of Girlfriends. In this episode,, Joan had lost her job and was talking to Toni about needing money. Toni revealed that she had half a million dollars (or was it one million even?) in her Never Go Back To Fresno fund. Toni worked as a real estate agent and she realized that while her income was great it was not very steady. She decided to save diligently and build up a fund that she could rely on if she was in a down period. This money would ensure that she never had to go back to Fresno, which is where she was born into a poor, dysfunctional family.

I liked the idea so much that I decided to start my own Never Go Back to Fresno fund and I even decided to call mine by the same name, even though I had no idea where Fresno was.

I built up my little emergency fund slowly because at the time I was paying down other large amounts of debt. I had built up the fund to a little over a thousand dollars when I decided to cash it in and completely pay off one debt that had been lingering for quite some time.

I like the idea of having ready access to cash that I can get my hands on that is still earning some kind of interest.

I like the idea of just having a cash base that I can draw from because there are a few situations that I might be in that call for cash.

I like seeing the little graph in Money that shows my little emergency fund is growing.

I like being able to say I have an emergency fund.

Why do you save money in your emergency fund?