"I Got Hit By A Bus Yesterday"

Brought to you by CHL, a budget-friendly, faith-based alternative to health insurance. chministries.org slash budget. What's your question today? Hey, so just how to get comfortable with using my emergency fund when an emergency has happened, as I recently got the baby step fork. Cool, congrats. Nice. How much do you have in the emergency fund? So I have 15 in there and a slight job change, not change recently, but better security recently. So that may be a factor as we go into this. Great. Okay. So let's talk about this emergency. Give us the most recent one where you went, I just can't dip into that. I got hit by a bus yesterday and... Donald, stop. Stop. Are you being for real right now? I actually am. Yes, I'm not lying to you at all. How are you? I'm okay. Luckily, the incident was completely fine. And that's why I'm much more focused on the finances at this point. Because it's like, I'm okay, everyone's okay. Yeah, I got checked out. I'm all right. Oh my gosh. I got hit by a bus. No one can ever say, well, man, it feels like I got hit by a bus today. Donald's like, uh... Donald's like, no, I really did. I raise you. Okay. Oh my gosh. Well, that would be a reason for the emergency fund. I think we can all agree on that. Okay. So just answer these three questions. Is it urgent? Is it necessary? Is it unexpected? I think we can all agree getting hit by a bus is all three of those things. You with me? I think it's a little unexpected. I think check that off. Yes. You didn't plan for it. There was no maintenance you could have done to avoid it. Maybe look both ways, but no. Now, was there police involved? Like, are they going to cover your ER bills? It was the city bus? It was a city bus. Unfortunately, due to how old the vehicle is, like it's a beater. Because of it, how the insurance claim would work. Oh, your car got hit by a bus. You were in a car. Yeah. Donald, can you lead with that next time, bud? I thought you were walking across the street. No, that's why I was talking about the car. Okay. Oh, Donald, you almost gave us a heart attack. No wonder. Okay. Oh my gosh. Okay. I'm glad we thought the same thing, George. You tell me, hey, I got hit by a bus yesterday. I assume you were walking. Okay. So Donald, you were in a car. Thank God. Okay. So go back. Tell us about the car situation. If you missed health plan open enrollment, don't panic. Christian Healthcare Ministries offers a budget-friendly alternative to health insurance, and you can join at any time. With CHM, there are no network restrictions, and members say they often save hundreds of dollars a month compared to traditional insurance. So make a change that fits your budget, your values, and your timing. Check out chministries.org slash budget to learn more. Tell us about the car situation. So car's old, but it's in obviously not workable shape anymore. It's done for. Yes, I expected a car upgrade to come in the future. I got 4K aside for that, but I obviously, now I need to kind of pull the trigger on it much earlier than expected. Gotcha. Is insurance going to write you a check? I can't really get anything out of the insurance because my comprehension and collision wasn't on there. I had enough insurance to be legal. I didn't have the proper insurance to get much out of this because my car's so old. It would basically, they're just going to write it off. And then I might get $2,000 out of it if I'm lucky. But again, because I don't have collision, it'd be a lot of fighting with the city, and we all know that's never easy no matter your municipality. Yeah, sure, sure. Okay, so you're just saying just it's a wash. It was an old car. I have money saved. How do I use this emergency fund? Yeah. Yep. Okay. So you're obviously low maintenance when it comes to the type of car because you're currently driving an older car, right? So how much money do you think you need to have a car? Maybe it's a little bit of an upgrade that'll last you longer, but what price range feels right to you? For safe reliability purposes, our markets out here, I would say between $8,000 and $10,000 is going to get me a car that's between 2015 and 2020, and somewhere between the $60,000 to $100,000 mile range. Okay. That's great. Yeah, I would take the $4,000, and then $5,000 of your emergency fund, go get a $9,000, you know. It still leaves $10,000 in your emergency fund, and then you begin the process of replenishing the emergency fund. And that's how you feel better about using it. It's not a, this thing is depleted forever. It's, all right, now I got to rebuild it. That's not fun. But hey, at least it's an inconvenience instead of a crisis, and you're going into debt on a credit card with 25% APR. So that's the move. Okay. And the truth is, the better you get at this stuff, the less emergencies you're going to have. Like when you're broke, you have everything as an emergency. And as you get to this place, baby step four, you buy a better car. You have nicer stuff that you can maintain better and pay for, you know, repairs and all that. And so I think it's sort of in your head that you're going to have to dip into this emergency fund all the time. I can't tell you the last time I used my emergency fund, because at some point you go, oh, we can probably just cashflow that at a next month's budget. It'll be fine. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So use some of this for it though. So hear us say that, please. Yes. Use enough to make sure that it's reliable, but don't go getting crazy, obviously. You don't need a $25,000 car because yours got totaled. So that's what most people do is they go to the dealership and say, I need a brand new car because look what happened. Last time I had a beater car, I got hit and it got totaled. Yeah. And that's what like my brother and others have already said to me about like possibly paid in the future, not now. And I'm like, that just doesn't fit my lifestyle. So no. Totally. Yes. You do you, pay cash. Yeah. Take $4,000 or $5,000 out and then yeah. How much do you make a year? $60,000. Awesome. I would work on upgrading that $9,000 car in a year or two. So set a sinking fund and go put $500 a month. Yeah. We were trying for a $15,000 car and then this obviously made it that I couldn't. I was planning to be able to do it by October of the end of this year, but now here we are where I kind of got to, I guess, finance myself as compared to finance with somebody else. Exactly. You are the bank and it's 0% interest with no payments. That's a deal, my friend. Yep. So thank you for the call. I'm glad you're okay. I'm glad that you were in a car. Next time you tell the story, make sure you lead with, hey, a bus hit my car. He probably thinks we're just crazy. It's probably like, duh. I was just, the mental image was just, it was like replaying over and over my mind of what happened to poor Donald. Okay. Glad he's okay. We're going to get through this. Thanks for the call. Christian Healthcare Ministries can save your family hundreds of dollars on healthcare every month. Learn more at chministries.org slash budget.