To answer the question posed in post #1: “Maybe, do you believe you have enough liquidity to cover a few months, or more, if you needed it?” … yes, I do now. I did not for a number of years, although I never had so little that I couldn’t cover an emergency of a few thousand. Fortunately, I did know that if the s**t ever hit the fan, family would be there as much as possible to help, and I will be there for my kids if necessary - they do not have extravagant lifestyles, so we are comfortable giving a bailout, if necessary. H & I feel very blessed. Our S just experienced the loss of his car (may it rest in peace) … a 2014 STEM grad who is underemployed, he can’t afford to replace it. We are going to buy him a dependable, used vehicle because we can. This way, he will still have more than $400 in his bank account to cover emergencies.
As the single mom of a college student, yes, I could absolutely cover $400 for an emergency, I could manage to cover up to $1000 if necessary, although not very comfortably. If the expense was higher than $1000, I would be looking at the best solution to borrow the money, such as last year when I had to replace my furnace and opted to get a home equity loan.
But I owe that to many factors, some very deliberate decisions, others pure luck -
My parents (mainly my father) put a high value on education, so I completed my own undergrad long ago, plus have both a MS and MBA, which has aided me in earning well above minimum wage throughout my career
I have had the same very secure job for the past 12 years (although the pay is not exceptional it puts me solidly in that disappearing middle class)
I drive a 16 year old car (with over 260,000 miles, but it still runs well enough to travel out of state periodically to visit relatives), that I paid cash for, so honestly can’t remember when I last paid a car payment
I HATE paying someone to do something I can do myself (or figure out how to do myself), so save significantly doing DIY
I only had one child and as we all know, children are expensive
I live in a very rural, very low cost of living area
My son is attending college on a full tuition scholarship + received several smaller awards + has completed both an internship and 3 semesters of a co-op position leaving low remaining costs
I am very frugal and when I have discretionary income would rather save it or pay down debt than spend it on something I don’t need that I will regret later
Yes. But, I suspect it would be a problem for one or two of my bffs and for sure for my living on SS dad.
Yes, I could but that is due to careful planning, a master at stretching the dollar, an ability to live very frugally and be happy with few material things. Don’t get me wrong, I spend money that I probably shouldn’t, but never before depositing into my 401K, 529, paying all my bills, and feeling secure that if an emergency rose I could pay it. Years of being a single parent taught me very valuable budget lessons, not to mention being raised in a hard-working, low income family where nothing was taken for granted. Getting a pair of shoes for the start of school was normal…getting the ones everyone else was wearing was a treat ! Maintaining an excellent credit score provides some security as well.
@garland - sorry for your loss. When I had a miscarriage many years ago my life insurance policy had a rider that paid some money which could be used toward funeral or medical expenses. I’m just wondering if maybe your DD has life insurance that has that kind of benefit and she may not know about it.
@garland, so sorry to hear about your D & SIL loss and having to deal with expensive medical costs on top of it.
Yes, I can come up with $400 - seems like it happens every week, too.
Just this weekend to go to out of town wedding by car cost us $1400ish not including dress I bought awhile back and new suit for H (which he needed anyway.) Boarding the dogs for 3 nights plus grooming was $400.
Happy to see my least affluent kid pay an unexpected car repair bill of $600. Yippee!!!
garland: I am so very sorry.
Thanks for all the kind wishes. Even in an early loss like this one was, it is astounding how much expense there can be, because of untypical complications.
I’m sorry for your loss, garland and family.
I’m surprised no one has started a thread on this already, but it IS really recent. Here’s an article about the disappearing wealth of the middle class, in that nearly half of Americans would have trouble finding $400 for an emergency. The author is a well-educated and relatively successful writer:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/05/my-secret-shame/476415/#article-comments
I found it interesting and a little scary. I hope the thread doesn’t devolve into righteous indignation about some of his poor financial choices and/or one of those holier-than-thou “this is how I scrimp and save” conversations…but have at it.
From the article:
Always good to have an emergency fund. We should pay ourselves first.
*Two threads that were sparked by the same article were merged, per our usual policy of trying to have one thread per topic. Some members think that the second thread had a different tone to it, a somewhat different focus. So let me point out that there was a fairly clean break of a few days between the last post to the first thread and the start of the second thread.
The OP for the second thread is now the OP (post 0 if you will) because I chose to use that title. The original OP for the first thread is now post #1, and everything is sequential by date after that. So because of the clean break, the first thread is posts #1-936, and the second thread is the OP and then posts #937 onward. So everybody gets their wish 
*
I should add that because of the merging, any post # references in comments #937 on will be incorrect.
wow, thanks for explaining. I thought I’d lost my mind! LOL.
^^ Seriously!
No wonder this seemed familiar!
had to cough up $2400 today for a new well pump.
it happens.
I wondered how I’d missed 900 posts in just one day!
You got off cheaper than me, @VaBluebird, if it makes you feel better. Had a similar situation a few months ago (pump, cables, tank, the whole shebang). Not a fun way to spend money but a necessity.