I'm over 50. It's not a question of IF an emergency will happen - it's when. My emergency fund will take care of me for a year. The peace-of-mind that affords me is priceless.
Before I gave up smoking (many years ago), I calculated how much it was costing a month. (That's an eye-opener for a start!). I stopped on a pay day, gave away the few ciggies I had left in the pack, and transferred the calculated amount into a three month deposit account. In my mind, I didn't have any money to buy smokes. So I didn't smoke that month - I couldn't unless I spent food money, rent, utilities, whatever. And by the following month, I was over the cravings, and well on the way to breaking free from the thought of smoking, so I set up a standing order for each month. The next year, I used the money for a holiday- my first proper, independent one. My uncle used the same technique, and bought his (still smoking) wife a fur coat (that's true love!). So, some of my money was gone - but the standing order was still in place, and when cigarette prices increased, I increased the standing order. It changed my mindset from "broke smoker" to "successfully saving ex-smoker". I think that first step is the biggest, most difficult, and most important one on the road to financial security. I just wish the internet could have helped me with advice!
I've recently been tracking what I spend on cigarettes since January this year. Almost $260 a month is what I've spent so far. And I've been smoking since I was a teenager so cigarette companies have gotten a lot of money from me for the last 2 decades. Hoping to be able to stop the habit soon since it's expensive and I'm not getting any younger.
@@Draega007 - I had the same problem with fast food. I discovered last October that I had spent $800 just eating out that month. Was a huge wake up call to quit. We all have our vices, so we’re all in this together.
Smoking is a waste of money because you have nothing to show for it (it immediately depreciates to zero.) Instead you quit and took the years worth of smoking money and spent it on a vacation which is ALSO a waste of money because it immediately depreciates to zero.
I have changed countries & jobs several times in my 20's and an emergency fund of 5k or so has helped me in more recent years to focus on the things I want to and not scramble around to earn money.
In Australia we have a really cool mortgage feature called an "offset" account, money can be paid into and spent from the offset account but as the money sits in the offset account it offsets the interest payable on your home loan, so for example if you have a $500,000 mortgage but have $100,000 in your offset account, you only pay interest on $400,000, so while interest rates for home loans are hitting 5%+ you're actually technically earning a 5% return on your "emergency fund"
you're forgetting to factor in inflation though. I don't know what it has been in Australia but for the past few years it has been like 7%, so if you have money sitting in an offset account, you'll need to look at it as "Only losing 2%" rather than gaining 5% (or whatever inflation is). This is important and why I tend to invest my emergency fund into the market which typically beats inflation by 7% a year so my fund is still continuing to gain money while I don't use it. If it's needed, I can liquidate it in about a week. If I need it sooner, I'll typically put whatever I need on a Credit card and simply use my emergency fund to pay it off before there's any interest. I typically put those funds into dividend stocks though rather than blue chip stocks, this way if the market is on a downturn when an emergency happens I'm usually still coming out ahead.
@@Spladoinkal True, but even then, consider the tax implications of saving the interest charged. If I'm offsetting an amount at 6%, it's saving 6% after tax A 9% return sounds great but after ~35% tax on the capital gains, you're back at 6% but with added risk. Obviously the concessional half-GCT makes it more like 7.5%, but if you have to wait a year, it's definitely not an emergency fund.
I like the "If you can't buy it twice you can't afford it". One thing I would add, is to build in a big delay before buying something (even if it is a USD 50 item). Often, you will find that the item you would have bought is not the best one, or that there are lower prices if you shop around, or that you don't really need it at all. It just quells impulse buying, and you don't have as much stuff to store, maintain, worry about, secure, or have to repair (or dispose of) later. I also really like the part about putting an equal amount in savings after buying something.
RU-vid thought I would like one of your old videos... it's just as brilliant as the latest stuff!! And later tonight I'll get me my first premium bonds. Hope you have your 12 months saved up now 🤑
Really clear video, you make it so easy to understand. You need to go to schools and talk to the leavers before they go to uni, wish I had been taught this when I was at school
Thank you! I think the fact we do not have any form of financial education in this country is a joke. What exactly are we preparing our children for, if not life?
500 subs! Holy moly you’ll be at 1k by the end of the year! That was an epic intro... the memes are hella strong in this! Also that thumbnail is incredible
Thanks mate!! Really appreciate you giving it a watch and glad to hear it all came across well. You know how it is in editing when you have watched yourself like a million times trying to be funny...
Damien Talks Money no problem! Also your community is growing fast, perhaps it’s time for you to make a discord server! (I can help set one up if you need) and yes I’m always laughing while editing, well... when I do smt funny
Damien Talks Money essentially it’s a server where you can chat to your community etc, I have one :) Check the description of my vids to join it and find out what they are
Another quality vid! So relevant with COVID happening atm! Interesting view point about emergency savings being used to lock in losses. Keep the vids coming please!
I had an emergency fund probs for the first time in my life (59) I'd always managed without one. I had an insurance to cover not being able to work due to accident or illness, I had considered stopping the insurance but decided to keep it until my mortgage was paid off (3 years time). then out of nowhere I had an accident & broke my back ive not worked for 4 months. That emergency fun was a life saver !
Premium Bonds is defo the way to go for liquid money for an Emergency Fund. You can always put on Credit Card in the first then pay off in full a few days later or after next draw by cashing in. Reinvest prizes and your money will compound itself too with average luck!
When i first started working as a Real Estate Salesperson i read a book by Tom Hopkins, an absolute legend in the idustry. He said before you do anything, get a minimum of 3 months in the bank. He called it your go to town money, you underestimate the psychological benefit of having this type of fund. As a Realtor it takes the money out of your eyes, you do not need the transaction so you become more effective and less pushy but just as importantly anytime you are faced with pressure by anyone to do anything that compromises your principals you can just say no, knowing that you have the security to cash the cheque your ego just cut.
I keep about 6 months of living expenses. Good health, stable job (knock on wood), but we live in a big old house where repairs when needed cost more than normal. For example we had the roof done a year ago, that was $50K USD. That was painful, but we knew it was coming so we'd bumped up the savings. Between that and dipping into the cushion we didn't have to borrow a penny or drain the cushion to worrying levels. And totally agree on building up investments while you're building up the cushion. That's what we did, we just live well below our income and put the difference into savings. The cushion didn't get built up overnight. But I tell you, as Damian said having it makes it much easier to keep saving. If we'd had to borrow money for all or most of that roofing job all that interest we'd be paying on the borrowed $50K is money that wouldn't be going into savings.
I'm relatively new to the UK so never thought about premium bonds as a place to hold my emergency fund, I saw the premium bonds video recently by pure coincidence so I'm taking that idea (probably my bank is not gonna be happy lol). So cheers for that
Damo, how about an episode about REITs? From a UK perspective in mind, most financial videos are US based and I'm finding a bunch of stuff doesn't cross the Atlantic 😳
Excellent suggestion mate! I will make it my next video after the one I am deep into editing now! You happy for it to cover the basics like what they are/how they work and then suggestions on some uk options for purchase? Damo
Run the numbers on Premium bonds i.e. how often you win and how much, and you'll find it equates to about a 2-3% return. Yes, there is the chance of winning big, but that chance is about the same as buying a lottery ticket, so not really worth considering. IMO you'd be better off with a high interest savings account, or if you have a mortgage, an offset account.
With an emergency fund you have effectively sold the market to that cash value at any point in time. Choosing not to invest is basically the same as selling.
Also consider how plausibly you could work from home and flexibly if you had a health emergency. If you could work from homw if you broke a leg / had chemo etc you're in a completely different financial position. If a dentist had cancer, they'd be off work for almost a year, but an accountant would probably be fine.
I'm in the uk as well, great videos, about 2 years ago I starting listen dave Ramsey on Alexa and RU-vid, not many people know who he is in the uk, thanks for the tips really useful advise.
When i switched from employed to self-employed i built up a fund (in Premium Bonds) to cover sick and holiday time off. Nonsooner had i reached my goal for that fund, i had a heart attack! So glad i had that fund in place, as it took the seecondary stress out of the situation. Ibwould say that as you get older you need to increase your emergency fund by about a month every 5yrs.
Or more. We are going into early retirement so we have over the last couple years saved up 4 years living expenses to ride out market downturns and then back fill that cash bucket when we have gains. Do plenty of investing because we live on 1/6 our gross income. We have always taken at least 1 big trip a year with smaller ones while working. The past several years we have been able to take multiple trips overseas and live large. We just did not spend all our money on junk that fills most peoples lives. We would rather keep a car for 15+ years and spend money on experiences than physical things.
Plum's free automatic algorithms saved me 79.24 and round up alogo saved me 31.56 over the last 3 months. There is one more free algo that pinches 2 pounds every week in plum, which is as good as a standing order, so i did not turn it on.
Just to add on the point about investing your emergency funds - emergencies and stock market crashes are correlated. When the markets crash, layoffs tend to happen. If one happens to be affected by such layoffs, you wouldn't want to be selling your investments at the time to tide you over while you find your next job.
An emergency fund can be equated to enough cash on hand or in the bank that can cover your single largest insurance deductible. It should never be earmarked for anything else at all. It should always be there. When it’s spent it should be refunded asap.
Such useful and easy tips! Never really gave much thought to an emergency fund as I have savings, but 2 moves in 3 months🤦♀️... i see the value now! Thanks for making it so comprehensible and setting up eays to go about it!
Here's my strategy - Put the money in a fixed deposit, then get a free credit card secured by the fixed deposit. The deposit grows at regular interest rates, and you pay nothing on the card when you don't use it. If you have an emergency, you spend on the card and have your standard 55-day period to pay it back. If the situation is terrible, you close the deposit to pay the card - you'll be losing interest you wouldn't have earned otherwise.
Wait. I have 3000 euro in my emergency fund. If I put it in vwrl and make 8% that gives a 26% buffer after 3 years. So even with a 26% downturn I can sell them and get 100% of the 3000 back. So what would be wrong with that strategy?
I keep 10% of my emergency fund in stable coins on blockfi to get that sweet sweet interest rate which offsets inflation destroying the other 90% It is so tempting to whack the whole lot in there it really is. But the purpose of an emergency fund is for security not yield. So i do not put more in at this point. Once the SEC investigation into Blockfi and if their Interest account should be treated as a security instead of a savaings account is finished. I may be tempted to stick more in.
I am not doing it as investments , My win rate puts me at about 1.5% interest rate over a year. Which is a lot better than any other high interest savings account I can store my emergency fund in currently.
Thanks for the video! I am in the same mindset as you & I follow your principle. However I have thought about putting my 6 months fund in a raising short squeeze stock with a trailing stop loss , safe guarding my emergency fund. What are your thoughts Damo ?
I mean i see what you are doing here! I like the logic, I have to say that it is very risky especially as a lot of these meme stocks experience times when trading is halted and so you could be burnt that way
@@DamienTalksMoney yeah agreed but I thought if I put a stop loss on and kept raising the stop loss it might be a same/win situation. Cheers for reply. Have been enjoying your vids. Especially the TAX one!
Hi there I can't make recommendations as I am not qualified but it depends if you want to use it for storing cash or for investing Cash, it doesn't matter all that much and a good place to start is your bank. For investing I use the Hargreaves lansdown one and hold index funds in it. Damo
Did you notice i gave you a shout out in my latest video on how risky are stocks and shares? the one where i have money on fire in the thumbnail.. Its in the first few seconds, so go check it out.
Thanks Chris! Really appreciate this feedback. After I have watched myself try to be funny like a million times when I edit. I really don't think I am funny anymore 😂 so great to hear you like it!
Hi Damien I’m looking to open a stocks and shares ISA in vanguard life strategy 100, but I am also vary of the current economic situation looming in the UK. Do you think this is a good time to invest in the index fund or should I potentially wait? Thanks for the videos :)
Hi David, It is my opinion that as long as you are investing long term, it is always a good time to buy! if anything in an economic crisis i increase the rate at which i am buying. Everything that is going on, is short term when you consider a 10/20 year timeline. personally i want the prices of index funds to fall in the short term, So i can pick them up for cheaper! I cover this point extensively in one of my earlier videos here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yG5plUMBtzQ.html Take a look at the section that discusses mindset and dollar cost averaging starting at 04:28 Hope this helps Thanks Damien
I'm in the invest your emergency fund crowd BUT, I tend to put my emergency fund into things like dividend stocks and reits where it's less about market valuation and more just reinvesting earnings so I'm not losing massive money in recessions if there's an emergency.
Must be a cultural thing. My family has a rule about keeping 18 months expenses as a reserve. 6 months amount in cash and a year's worth in the bank. My father introduced me to that information bit. Grandma bought gold at 15 rupees per 10 grams. It is over 50K now. Oh and by the way, calculate monthly cost by dividing the yearly cost by 12. Some of the yearly expenses tend to skew the estimates lower than they should be. A few relatives called us tight arses but we were proven right when the old lockdowns hit us without preamble!
Another great video! Can an app like Moneybox be used for automating the kind of Hula Bar and petrol station deposits you mentioned? Surely you don't log into online banking there and then to transfer the money each time you buy a round? Haha unless you do that the day after? I'm more tempted to just see what my total outgoings are at the end of the month and then invest, say, 20% of that. Seems like less hassle to me, unless I'm missing something.
haha love this comment. And you are correct pissed up Damien is not remembering to ping 50p to his investments for the 2 tequilas he just bought. Yes money box does the round ups. I also like Monzo for this as they have locked pots and take the money instantly where as money box you have to wait till Wednesday so you just spend the money anyway. So top up monzo, go out, spend, money goes into a locked pot that once it gets to a certain level I unlock and put the money into savings. Hope that makes sense!
Hi Neil, You could just use 212 no need to have both if you don't want to. Historical data shows anyone who has invested for longer than 10 years has been pretty much certain to make a positive return.
So would you put your emergency funds in high interest account AND your savings in another separate high interest account? And Im assuming you'd have them in "easy access" savings account
ohhh. I just watched to see what you thought we should do with emergency funds. My 6 month emergency fund is already in premium bonds. I'll just leave now. 😂
But if the 30k in index etf is up 30k and the market drops 25%. I am still up 15k, and it 15k i wouldn't have if it was parked... LOL... JK 😜 I think an emergency fund is good.
Let's hope life showers you with blessings, and the algorithm shoots your channel to the moon. This video was top notch Personal Finance education, and hit every beat for those new to Investing, who might not understand Reserve Planning. I'm so pleased you produced this. Thank you.
Hahaha with great difficulty! i basically do them now,as i know you will be disappointed if i don't. Normally i make the video and then go for a drive while playing loud tunes... helps me be creative and think of an ending.
I’ve seen way too much of this type of advice in my life, but that ‘buy it twice’ idea is something that’s new, and awesome! It’s also worth mentioning that it’s more likely that the biggest emergency - losing your job - is more likely to happen when the economy is in the bin, and thus investments are too. Another reason it’s a bad idea to invest your emergency fund. We’re seeing right now how even the safest investments - government bonds - can go pear shaped when forced to sell during a financial squeeze
Even though this is one of your older videos, it came at a perfect time as I have just received a pension pay out and was wondering where to store it! Big up
Or...if you have your mortgage paid off and have no debt, you could switch your fund from accumulation to distribution (assuming a poor rate of return worstcase scenario, letsay 5%) would cover all of your monthly expenditure (possibly). Just a thought
With an emergency fund you have effectively sold the market to that cash value at any point in time. Choosing not to invest is basically the same as selling.
Great insight and really helpful. Not many people know how to go about building an emergency fund and I feel your video really breaks it down into digestible chunks. Keep up the great work. Perhaps a video on how to manage your finances could help to! Big loves
New subscriber to the channel and absolutely loving it so far, especially with the UK focus. Out of curiosity (and apologies if this has been answered elsewhere!), with your savings or any income that isn't required to pay essentials (mortgage/rent, bills, food, etc) do you allow yourself any kind of 'Leisure/Luxury' savings for the short term? For example saving for a holiday/a night out/new TV/or whatever other luxuries you personally enjoy, or are you very strict in that any non-essential income is strictly for investing and your emergency fund? If possible a video on how you split your income each month would be amazing! Thanks for the great content and looking forward to more!
Hi mate! I will make this video for You. I think it is super important to have a budget for you to spend on the things you love. You just need to be honest with yourself and if your in loads of debt and stuff, I would personally focus on this. But life is for living and for enjoying yourself. Every month I have a fixed budget for money that I can just do what I want with. And then when I was paying off debt in the past every time I paid a debt off I increased the amount in that budget a bit.
Bro, your smashing it! Many thanks for the sound advice in a simple to digest format. Love the closing Jay Z comment... May I suggest investment and tax mitigation ideas for £100k +.
2:53, if the car broke down during the Covid lock down then it wouldn't have mattered. ;) but seriously though, the answer is obviously a sensible blend of cash AND investments, keep some cash for emergencies, then invest the rest. What's a sensible blend? That depends on individual's level of risk aversion. However, at some point you just have to take possible risk of having to lock in loses when a large emergency comes up, but if you don't take that very small chance of losing 30%, then you'll never benefit from the more likely chance of seeing that money grow 30%, 50%, 100% in the first place. 10:22 manually rounding up your spending is far too much effort IMHO. Personally I would never keep it up long enough to make a difference. I find the "pay yourself first" method, ie setting up an automated bank transfer to my savings on pay-day is the best way to guarantee that I saved every month.
So if we are saving for an EF and investments every month, how do we save for the things we want/need ie furniture, holiday, new kitchen? I feel silly asking but I'm confused!
@@DamienTalksMoney Also doing a little digging through oldies since I found your videos. They are so helpful, thank you! I was wondering why you use premium bonds for your savings? Also, have you made a video yet on different UK pension providers for consolidating old workplace pensions?
This is great, thanks. I've got my 3 months in a high interest savings account, but it's always bothered me that it's just... sitting there, rather than working for me. The 'locking in market losses' angle is one I haven't heard before, & does make me feel a little better about it.
Hey Great videos. Can you make one on Dave's suggestion on reaching a millionaire if you invest 100 in high interest stock? Do we even have stocks like that in the UK? What's the alternatives? Thank you 😊
Hi! Thanks for watching and leaving such a great question. Dave is essentially recommending you invest 100 a month consistently for years to get to the million and this is certainly something we are able to do in the uk. Using apps like freetrade you can purchase the same American companies he refers to. Or you could buy index funds. The million isn't garunteed it's based on assumptions of growth, based on historical performance which is no guarantee of future performance. Personally I use index funds such as the ones I cover on my Vanguard videos. The key is investing consistently for the long run.but in those index funds are all the companies Dave is advising.
Keep my easy access / emergency fund in Chip (£5k at 1.25%) and Atom (currently ~£8k at a paltry 0.5%). Sounds like this is shit due to inflation and the rates being under 2% I think this video is a bit out of date - if you were allocating funds today where would you put it? Interest rates in easily accessible accounts are crap!
@@DamienTalksMoney so I’ve opened an LS100 with Vanguard with an initial £2k. I’ve done some better research into an old ISA I set up years ago between the Ls100 and my older one it feels like i have quite a significant UK bias. With Vanguard can I also pump funds into say VUSA to diversify slightly? Also if I’m able to go that route would you put all funds to VUSA initially to get that up to £2k and then contribute to both monthly on an equal footing or just contribute to both equally on an ongoing basis and not be concerned having more in ls100 than VUSA?
