My younger sister advises me to invest in silver or gold coins if I have spare money in hand.

According to her, now is the best time to buy silver bullion. As the world demand for silver has already exceeded the annual production and will keep on increasing while the supply for silver bullion is on the decrease, it’s wise to buy silver coins to keep.

Too bad that I am in the midst of saving extra money as emergency funds, otherwise, I will consider sharing with my sister.

It’s important for me to have enough emergency funds before I can think of any investment.

Hubby asked if I would like to get a new lcd monitor. Huh, what for?

Well, his buddy is a computer technician who can get computer accessories at very cheap prices.

Dear hubby, we just forked out more than $250 for the motorbike and personal accident insurance.

Where did the money come from? Well, from our emergency funds.

So please, any extra money we have, it must go into the emergency funds first.

This is life, isn’t it? Just as I thought I could save a bit more money this  month for a microdermabrasion therapy for my wrinkles, scars and skin that has been damaged by overexposure to the sun , some unexpected expenses cropped up.

Hubby’s motorbike insurance and my personal accident premium expired last week and this week respectively.

We had to fork out $285 from the emergency funds to pay the insurance.

So any extra money I have by the end of the money has to go into the emergency funds.

It’s February and news about layoffs, job cuts, job losses, store closings is still seen and heard every day.

A few of my blogging pals’ husbands have already been terminated or have had pay cuts.

This really worries my blogging pals who are not making much from their online businesses yet and have not much emergency funds in their savings accounts.

Emergency funds are considered to be a necessity as far as financial security is concerned.

Emergency funds can provide you with financial resources that you can resort to and depend on when an emergency arises such that when you are sick and have the burden of paying huge medical bills, or unexpected home or major car repair.

When you have no emergency fund, you can be obliged to acquire debt on your credit card that might take several years to repay with interest that would later cost so much more.

However by putting an extra thirty to fifty dollars every month in an individual “emergency savings account” you can be secured with what emergency the future may bring. In doing this, it is recommended that you regard the emergency fund as an additional bill, to be punctually paid each month.

Yes, you can and should budget and allocate the extra money for emergency fund, as this is very significant when one refers to his “financial future”. Here, the goal is to create savings from budgeting your income; the emergency savings should ideally be equal to at least three months your living expenditures.

What’s important is that you should steadily put a certain amount of money aside, and only use it for real emergencies.

Not like an investment, the success of your long-term savings funds does not really count on the amount of return or interests but on placing a fixed amount of money away constantly and steadily so to have immediate access to it at all times.

In spite of your financial status, the initial step in the process of constructing an emergency fund is by knowing where your money is presently being consumed or spent.

When you recognize and determine where your earnings are spent, then it will be easy for you to choose and make a decision where to trim down expenses. In other words, budget.

Budgeting is putting or setting aside money for anticipated and unanticipated future use. It is here that you set up a goal so as to save. So set an emergency fund as your goal.

Checking, savings, money market accounts and “certificates of deposits”, are great places to keep your cash that might be needed on quick notice.

The amount saved from budgeting can either go to your savings goal, emergency fund or both. You could utilize the money saved from budgeting financial expenses by saving half of it to your savings account and half of it for emergencies. This way, you achieve your goals in savings and at the same time put in funds for emergency use. It’s your choice.