When my husband and I got serious about finances, we made a budget and started saving a little money every payday.
It was a start.
About six months down the road, my eyeglasses broke. “Great!” I said, “We have money in our emergency fund!” My husband was completely against using that money and said we would have to put the expense on a credit card. (This was an emergency because I’m legally required to wear glasses when driving.)
We had a huge argument that showed we both had fundamental differences and beliefs about money and how it should be handled.
But then we got inspired! What if we made a loan to ourselves from our emergency fund? We agreed to set our own terms, put them in writing and pay back our fund over and above our regular savings amount! This made us both happy!
We took the amount we borrowed and divided it by 10. We gave ourselves the option of skipping one month (we are benevolent bankers) and we charged ourselves 10% interest (simple) interest.
No credit card was touched, the emergency fund continued to blossom and marital bliss resumed!
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4 comments ↓
Cute idea! We’re still hashing things out for our 2009 budget … this idea may come in handy!
My folks did something similar with me as a teenager. I had to save 10% of everything I made and could loan myself up to 60% of the savings in no more than two loans.
Payback, however, was interest-free.
I stuck to the plan until I was in my early twenties when I went and lost my freakin mind financially.
I like the dads way of doing that for teenagers. Though I think for teenagers I would institute a 7-12% interest on paying the money back. Just to teach them the math and to reinforce opportunity cost.
Hi George and Mary,
I’m ready to try this out……Jolie
I’ll be getting back in touch with you in the next three weeks. Big test in two weeks. Lots of studying….Dave
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