Retirement Plan or Emergency Fund

blessed81 · March 2015

Good Morning Nesties! What is your top priority ?

1. maxing out your retirement plan?

2. having a large emergency fund?

hoffse · March 2015

Retirement plan. We can afford to live on one income, so that in itself is a built-in emergency fund. We also keep enough cash on hand to absorb most unexpected things that pop up, and we've never really needed to have more than that in liquid savings.

Eventually we'll work toward building the e-fund some more, but retirement takes top priority for us right now.

als1982 · March 2015

Retirement plan. At this point, we're still eligible to put the full $5,500 a year per person in our a ROTHs, so we do that plus our respective employer plans up to the match amount. After that, our priority is paying off our student loans.

lifeonthehill · March 2015

I am only 23 so I put my E-Fund ahead of retirement. Now that the E-Fund is built up to where we want it we are all about the retirement. We are up to 5% with a 5% match and will be at a full 15% on June 1st!

Xstatic3333 · March 2015

I'd say they are equal priorities for us right now. We're working on both.

noffgurl · March 2015

For us our top priority is building our EFund.

simplyelise · March 2015

I think it depends on what you consider a "large" emergency fund. I'd like to get up to 6 months bare bones expenses, but our expenses are pretty low (no house or kids), so I don't really consider that a large e-fund.

I'm 25, we should have our student loan debt paid off july/august 2016. Right now we've got about 1.5-2 months emergency fund. We'll focus on beefing that up for about 3 months after the debt is done, then fund Roths for both of us in 2016. Staring in 2017, we will be doing 15% of our income towards retirement.

jessica490 · March 2015

Our e-fund is definitly important to us right now...once we buy a house this year, we would like to double the amount in our e-fund.

But, retirement has always been a priority in which we increase our 401K percentages every year. Also, after we buy a house we will both open up Roth IRA's and start saving for those as well.

vlagrl29 · March 2015

both are equal to us

kasi55 · March 2015

Our priority right now is retirement. We would like to continue to contribute at least 15% of our gross income if not more.

cbee817 · March 2015

Retirement- our efund currently has 10 months of expenses if we made no changes (full time day care for 2 kids is our biggest expense.. larger than our mortgage). If we both lost our jobs, we could easily stretch our efund to 18 months by keeping the girls home.

maple2 · March 2015

Retirement is our priority in the sense that we are actively saving for it. We are comfortable with the level of our e-fund right now and don't feel any need to actively contribute there. If our e-fund was lower, I still think retirement would be a higher priority for us because even without money in the bank we would have options to weather a short term emergency (credit cards, loans from family, etc.). None of those things would be ideal, but we could get by for awhile if we had to. I'm less sure we would have those kinds of options to survive in retirement.

SmrBrd2012 · March 2015

E-fund, only because we are expecting in May and I'll be out of work for a couple of months. Once we figure out our finances with our new impending daycare budget, we'll probably put more effort into retirement.

abrewer5 · March 2015

Both are extremely important me. I contribute 10% currently with a 5% match, so 15% total. I'd like to get this number up to 15% with 5% match, but first I want to get more in our e-fund and down payment for our next house. I'm only 24, so for right now 15% total is pretty good.

Wulfgar · March 2015

Since I am one of the older people on this board, my main focus is retirement. I have a degree that is in high demand, engineering. I got laid off in 2010 and had a new job within the month. We also have a lot of home repairs and other expenses that are preventing us from building a more acceptable emergency fund.

Mustard76 · March 2015

Both. We each contribute 18% of pay between my 401(k) and ROTH. We save 20% of net pay in e-fund savings and 20% in our moving account (to buy our next house).

aemmert360 · March 2015

Retirement. But we already have about a 6 month emergency fund so that is an easy question for me

Erikan73 · March 2015

Both, I'm in my early 40's and husband is late 40's. Husband just finally this year started up a 401K realizing this would be a great way to have to owe so much on taxes each year. He didn't have anything established before (we've been married just over 2 years). So if we want to regire in about 25-30 years we need to get moving on the retirement fund. But on the flip side we need to work on current savings account in case we have an emergency come up.

dragonstarjk · March 2015

Retirement fund. We're comfortable having a small e-fund, but I really want to reach the point where we are maxing out our retirement funds. I'd rather have to deal with a financial emergency at this point in our lives than have to deal with a financial emergency thirty years from now. Working in banking, I can't tell you how often I work with people who are retired and not financially prepared for emergencies. It can be devastating.

als1982 · March 2015

@dragonstarjk, I think you're my MM crush!

HoneyBee973 · March 2015

Both are important to us, but retirement is definitely more important.

andkatiesays · March 2015

Retirement, hands down. We have a $5K EF. We can easily live on one income and still save so we're comfortable with a smaller EF.

Retirement Plan or Emergency Fund

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