We opened another ING account today. We have had our emergency fund there for the last two years, and last month we started a fund to save for solar panels. Now we’ve decided that we should start saving for a car. We have no intention of buying a car any time soon, but our cars are getting up there in years (mine is a ’91 and my husband’s is a ’90) and we know they won’t last forever. We won’t ever finance a car purchase, but we would rather not be caught off guard and have to buy a $600 car when one of ours gives out. So we’ve opened a savings account and put $200 into it. We’ll do that every month until we eventually need a new (to us) car. If one of our cars were to give out in the very near future (they’re both running great right now, but you never know), we would just make do with one car until we had enough to go car shopping.
We’re now officially stretched thin. We’re paying ourselves first, and it’s all going towards long and short term savings goals, but we’ve allocated just about all of our income right now. We have our IRAs and our HSA to max out every year, our son’s college fund, our emergency fund, our solar panel fund, and now a car fund. Plus we’re trying to pay off our HELOC as quickly as possible. That doesn’t leave much of anything left over, but it feels good to be saving for things that really matter to us. I’d much rather have solar panels on our house someday, and a car that doesn’t need financing, than a bunch of forgotten restaurant meals and clothes that I no longer wear.
bleh bleh says
Just a thought – wouldn’t replacing or repairing one of your vehicles constitute an emergency? If so, maybe you could put the extra $200 towards paying off your HELOC instead. Then, when it is paid off, start saving for a replacement vehicle.
I guess this would work best if your HELOC payoff date is reasonably soon. I probably wouldn’t want to count on nearly 20 year old vehicles too much longer. Anyway, I have always found that I tend to ‘notice’ more progress on things when I don’t have too many pots on the stove, so to speak.
Movingonup! says
Good for you for saving up for a car. I hope to start an account soon.
Frugal Trenches says
I love that last sentence inparticular, that is exactly how I feel. I’d rather save for emergency fund, retirement, travel, house etc then meals and drinks I’ll never remember!
FrugalBabe says
bleh bleh, We thought about that. But we consider our emergency fund to be for unforseen things that we can’t really plan for – stuff like a major drop in income, or something that requires us to meet our home-owners insurance deductible, etc. (we have an HSA in case we need to meet our health insurance deductible) Buying a car is something we know we’ll eventually have to do, so we’d rather plan for it a little more aggressively.