Low Income: Building An Emergency Fund

Life can be stressful when competing with the rising costs of living considering you have a low income.

When it comes to saving for your future or living in the here and now, it’s difficult to know where you stand with generation rent and debt becoming a prominent news headline.

When facing a financial emergency, it’s better to get money from your emergency fund rather than getting unsecured loans. Unsecured loans have higher interest rates while emergency funds have zero interest and you’ll never worry where to get the emergency cash you need.

Even if you’re taking home a low income, here are some ways to build up your emergency funds:

KEEP YOUR EMERGENCY CASH SEPARATE

bear in mind that you should ALWAYS isolate your emergency fund from your existing account. This way, you do not impulsively purchase products that you can’t really afford and you can keep an eye on how much money you are saving. However, make sure that it is still accessible to ensure that you can easily have cash when you do face an emergency.

LOOK AT EXPENSES YOU CAN DITCH

You may not noticed it, but we have many small unnecessary expenses that’s keeping us from savings. One of the most common is not our subscriptions to Netflix or Spotify, it’s from purchasing water bottles every now and then instead of bringing our own.

Other example is eating out with colleagues during lunch time when you could have pack your own lunch. Instead of paying for a 50 or a hundred peso lunch, you can easily prepare your own meal.

Cooking your own meal saves you a lot of money. A hundred peso can cover 3 meals considering you are the only person consuming it. Compare a hundred peso 3 meal to a hundred peso or more one-time meal with your colleague.

You’ll find your emergency fund starting to build up when you cut out all your unnecessary expenses. So make sure to determine what expenses you can ditch and what is not.

LOWER YOUR PHONE BILL

Reconsider your options if you are still paying an expensive phone bill despite having a low income. Not unless, those expensive phone bills is giving you money in return like when you are using it to contact your clients to make a sales.

I know that the simplest and easiest way to find and afford latest phone models is to get a plan that you need to pay for a year or two. But if you are patient enough, I’m sure you can find and afford the phone that you are looking for without committing to a 2-year contract.

There’s plenty of different tips and tricks that you can implement to ensure that you are building up the emergency fund that you need. It takes time to build a habit out of it but don’t quit. Train yourself until such time you it is easier for you to save for your emergency funds.

For me, I am using automatic savings to ensure that I am paying myself first before anything or anyone else.

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