Leo says you need an emergency fund. Trent says you need an emergency fund. Your mother probably says you need an emergency fund. But do you have one?

The last few months have been good ones for me. Jamie’s student loans came in, and I got a pretty substantial bonus from one of my freelance clients. I was able to increase my rates for some of my writing jobs. All in all, it’s been pretty good.

I wanted to buy a big screen TV. Jamie wanted to set up an emergency fund. Knowing that he was right, as usual, we filled up our emergency fund to a level we felt comfortable with. (Then the bonus came and I secretly bought him the TV for his birthday anyway, but that’s neither here nor there.)

I got to feeling pretty smug. I bought the TV, everything went as planned, our emergency fund is fine, and I was about ready to start telling him it hadn’t been that important to begin with. Then today happened. Today, we took a little family trip to the pediatric ophthalmologist.

Today I found out my 13-month old needs glasses.

I didn’t even know they made glasses for toddlers. Sure enough, they do, and we’re going to buy a pair or four. One month after our health benefits expired.

Now here are a few things you might not know about outfitting your one-year-old in spectacles. Apparently, toddlers have been known to break things. This means it’s not impossible that we’ll have to buy four pairs of these things in the next 12 months. Also, their prescriptions tend to change every 6-12 months, so even if he’s the first baby in the history of baby glasses to NOT break or scratch them, we’ll have to replace them anyway. Also, babies are often allergic to certain metals, so they make these ones in titanium.

It would be cheaper for him to take up smoking.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that one year ago, this would have thrown me into a frenzy (and not just because Jack would have only been four weeks old at the time.) I wouldn’t have had the four hundred bucks to buy the glasses. I would have felt like a bad mother and a bad person. I would have been all around hysterical. Now, though, we have a comfortable emergency fund and I’m not scared.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I am annoyed. I am inconvenienced. (Keep in mind this is the child who categorically refuses to wear pants so I’m not sure how we’re going to convince him to wear glasses.) But I’m not scared.

When you’re first deciding to make the move to self-employment, people always tell you to expect the unexpected. And you try to do that, but it’s hard. What kind of unexpected was I thinking about? I was thinking major car repairs, which don’t exactly affect me since I don’t have a car. I was thinking the roof caving in, which also doesn’t affect me since I don’t actually own my roof. I was thinking major orthodontia which doesn’t affect me since my child only has four teeth.

I sure as hell wasn’t thinking my kid would need to wear glasses before he needed to wear shoes. My point? Expect the unexpected, the really unexpected, and create a sizeable emergency fund.

Leo does a better job of explaining how and why you should create an emergency fund than I ever could. You should probably go read it.

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By Naomi Dunford - Oct 4, 2007 in Money - 1 Comment