Creative Ways to Build Your Emergency Fund

One of the first steps to reaching financial freedom is to build a basic emergency fund.  While most financial experts recommend 3-6 months of expenses in a well funded emergency fund, it’s advisable to start with a goal of $1,000.  Just having a thousand dollars stored away for a rainy day can give you peace of mind and financial stability if an unexpected expense happened.

But getting an extra thousand dollars isn’t always easy – especially if there’s not much room in your paychecks to spare each month.  If you want to reach your savings goal quickly, you might need to get creative! Here are a few ways to creatively boost your savings while cleaning out your closets at the same time.

Sell Your Clothes

Whether you’ve grown out of your clothes or don’t particularly like a certain style anymore, you probably have some things in your closet that you can sell.  Gather together your gently used shoes, shirts, and anything else that might sell and bring them to a consignment shop in your town.  You might be surprised to find out your old clothes are worth a few bucks, bringing you that much closer to your $1,000 emergency fund.

Sell Your Jewelry

If you have old jewelry that goes unworn, you might be sitting on a few hundred dollars without realizing it!  You can sell your silver or gold jewelry for very good prices today as the price of these commodities have increased over the past 10 years.  Jewelry buying stores are located all across the country and some even buy your jewelry even if you don’t live nearby.

Clear Out Your Bookshelf

With eBooks and audiobooks becoming so popular, keeping paper books can be a pain for some people.  Thin out your paper book collection by creating an account on Amazon or eBay and sell your old books.  If you have any modern books (especially college text books) you can sell those for a good amount of money!

Once you have your emergency fund in place, do everything you can to continue to increase it little by little each month.  With every extra few dollars you put into your account, you’ll be closer to that 3-6 month savings goal.

Do you have any advice for someone who is saving up for an emergency fund?

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