My Emergency Fund Is Gone - Now What?

Have you finally scraped together a small emergency fund? And then one car repair just wipes it out in a single week? And then you're thinking to yourself, what's the point? I'm never going to get ahead.If that's where you are today, I want you to know I hear you.And today I'm going to help you break that worry cycle with a simple rebuild plan that makes the next surprise feel smaller and at the same time, your peace feels stronger. Hey, friend. Ralph Estep Jr. Here. Welcome. Welcome to Financially Confident Christian.My goal on this show is to help you break that cycle of financial shame and do it with confidence. And today we're talking about what to do when your emergency fund gets used and all of a sudden you find yourself in that high anxiety spike again.Well, let's get right to today's listener question. Ralph, I'm tired of living in this cycle of money stress and financial anxiety. I feel like no matter what I do, I can't get ahead.I was finally able to start a small emergency fund and saved about $500. And then just last week, my car needed that emergency repair and rap. There goes my savings. Now I'm worried again.What can I finally do to break this worry cycle? Well, I just want to start by saying thank you so much for sending me your question. I appreciate the vulnerability you're sharing.And my big takeaway for today is you gotta break that worry cycle by turning those emergencies into a plan. That's what we're really gonna focus on today because that anxiety stops being your alarm system when you've got a plan. So let's start off by name.You know, if you listen to my show, you know, I like to name things because I think when we name things, it brings them out. So let's start the first thing. Name what happened correctly, and I'm going to pick on you a little bit. Your $500 didn't disappear.It actually worked for you. It protected you. It did what it was supposed to do because you avoided those worse outcomes. You didn't tell me you went into a debt spiral.You didn't tell me that you couldn't afford to get your car fixed so you were taking the bus. You didn't tell me that you charged up a credit card. You didn't tell me that you had late bills or you made some panic decision.This is actually progress. So start by saying, you know what? This is progress. The emergency fund that I set up, it did exactly what I intended it to do.So give yourself some kudos. Give yourself a pat on the back. Name what happened? It didn't disappear. It did exactly what it was charged to do.Second thing, now it's time to build a bounce back plan. You might be saying, ralph, that's exactly what I need. I need that bounce back plan. How do you do that? Let's start off simple.Let's start with that 500 target again. We want to build that 500 back the same goal we had before so you can get to that same win.Create some automatic savings, maybe a repeatable weekly amount of $10 or $15 or $25. And as you know, I see on this show frequently, automate it if it's possible. But just think about, you've done this before.You've had that win before. You can do this. And it might feel tough at first. You might be like, wait, what happens if something else happens?Let's not worry about that right now. Let's build that consistency. This isn't a race. We're just going to build that consistency to build that fun back up.Now here's another thing I want to encourage you to do. A lot of people don't think about this.If you've got a car that's a problem or if you've got a home that's a problem, this is a great time to create what I call buffer accounts. In this case, let's talk about creating a car buffer account because maybe you've got a car like Ralph, this car is on its last leg.I can't afford to go buy another one. I can't afford to go get into another payment. But we can't let these repairs hijack us anymore. So this is what my encouragement for you is.Create a separate bucket. Now you're going to say, ralph, you're setting up a million different accounts. It's okay, have 20 accounts, just keep track of this stuff.But set up a separate bucket, call it car repairs. And maybe you don't have a separate account, but you just label it.You got a little spread, a little ledger or a little note or something you just write on there. I've got $10. It goes every week for my car repair budget. Start at 5 bucks or 25.That way you can absorb that repair in the future without hitting your main emergency fund. And then when it's used, refill it the same way, calmly and planned way. Because when you do that, it's not a surprise anymore.You're like, ralph, you know what? I've got this car repair fund. This car is a jalopy it's always causing me problems. When I have a problem with it, I go to the fund.Here's another thing I'm going to encourage you to do. Put some guardrails on the week after an emergency. This is the thing a lot. This is what leads to so much anxiety and fear.A lot of people have that emergency and you can feel it yourself. You tense up, you start worrying. You're like, oh man, I'm going through my emergency fund.I'm going to tell you right now, do something I call putting a guardrail up. So maybe for you, you do this. Seven day pause on non essentials. All of us can figure out a way to do this.Yeah, Dave Ramsey calls it the rice and beans time. But maybe he's like, I have an emergency budget.So you had an emergency situation and now you say, okay, I've got to go into emergency mode for seven days. And maybe for you, that's, we cut out eating out. We're not going to eat out. We're going to brown bag our lunches.We're going to stop the Amazon impulse buys, maybe replace one free comfort thing. You know, maybe you're a person likes to get a coffee on the way to work.Well, instead of that, you say, look, for seven days, I'm going to go for a walk instead. Or I'm going to listen to some worship music, or I'm going to reach out and talk to that friend I haven't talked to for a while.So not only are you rebuilding financially, but you're rebuilding your spiritual and your psychological self. Create a simple world for yourself. This is my rebuild week. Because when you do that, you're going to say to your mind, I get it.This is what happened. And here's what I'm going to do to replace that. Which leads me to this. You got to replace that what if with one next right sentence.So if you're somebody that suffers from anxiety, I'm pretty fortunate. I'm not a person that has a lot of anxiety. I have people in my life that have anxiety. My youngest son lives in this constant state of anxiety.I don't experience that, but I get it. So when your anxiety spikes, have that plan to go back to. Maybe it's something as simple as I have a plan for saving that next $10.You don't understand how much that can change your whole dynamic because that one faithful step will be a thousand fearful thoughts that are racing through your mind. And I said that I don't experience it. I get it though. I Understand anxiety. But we've got to have a plan. We've got to have thought process.Because once you have that clarity in your mind, it really calms you down. And I want you to hear this, and I want you to hear this loud and clear. You're not back at zero.Your emergency fund did exactly what you wanted it to do. What you're doing is you're building resilience, and that's a beautiful thing. So here's your today's winner. One single step for today.Go ahead and create that automatic transfer of $10 a week into your emergency funding. You probably think, ralph, you're a doggone broken record.You say this all the time, but think about how that can help you, because now you've got that buffer. And I like automation because it turns that fear into a plan that you don't have to renegotiate.A lot of people say, I'm just going to do it when I get my paycheck. Well, guess what? You probably won't create that automatic. And it's like it never even happened. But that's my, that's my encouragement for you today.Well, let's get to our Bible verse. I always want to ground us in scripture. Today's Bible comes to us from First Peter, chapter 5, verse 7.And this one will be super reassuring if you're in that feeling of anxiety again, 1st Peter 5, 7, cast all of your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Now, I don't even need to comment on that one, do I? Cast all of your anxiety on him because why he cares for you. Worry is real.I am not going to be sitting here and mitigating worry. Worry is something you experience. It's something I experience. Some of us experience deeper than others. But what is God saying to you?God's saying to you, hand it to me and I'll do this. You've got to take the next step. I'm not saying hand it to him and say, oh, guess what? I'm not going to do anything, Lord.That's not what I'm saying here. But hand over that to him and takes that next faithful step. How about we pray together, Lord, you see how tired and anxious we feel right now.And you see the disappointment of finally saving. We were so encouraged by doing that, but then we needed to spend it. So right now we're carrying fear about what's next, Lord.So today, right now, just like the scripture says, we're choosing to cast that anxiety onto you because we know you care for us, Lord. And in that caring, we ask that you would give us wisdom today and give us peace for this moment.And Lord, help us to just rebuild without panic and without fear. Help us to trust you even with the small steps week by week and day by day so that fear doesn't lead our decisions. Lord, provide what we need.Strengthen our hearts, Lord, and guard our mind when those what if thoughts try to take over. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Friend. I want you to hear this. You can rebuild calmly because you're not alone and you're not failing.And I want to encourage you right now, if this show is helping you, if you're getting value from it, just share the show with somebody. Just send them a quick text and point them to our website. And if you've got a question for the show, I would love to hear from you.That's what really drives the show. Go to financiallyconfidentchristian.com/question we'll put this in the show notes, but go to financiallyconfidentchristian.com/question i want to hear your questions.I want to help you break that cycle of financial shame and really find confidence. Because guess what? You can do this. So thank you so much for joining me today as I always end this show, stay financially savvy.God bless you and you have a great day today.