Refunding the Emergency Fund

As I wrote about a few days ago, I had to put the emergency fund into action on Monday due to a repair to my van. I am truly grateful that God held this problem off until I had the money to pay for it in cash; a week earlier, and it would have had to go onto a credit card; however.....I kinda wish I would have been able to enjoy an emergency fund for longer than 72 hours! No matter, it was there when I needed it, which is what it is for.

Now I need to get a plan together to refund the emergency fund. The debate I'm having with myself is whether or not to suspend snowball payments to the credit card and focus on the emergency fund (EF) or to contribute to the EF while continuing snowball payments. Right now I'm leaning towards working on both and not suspending the snowball payment. I know Dave Ramsey says to stop the snowball while working on the EF, but I'm feeling a tad discouraged as it is, and I think stopping the snowball would make it worse. Actually with my income, I'm borderline as to where Dave says an EF should be ($500), and I have some additional funds in there for big-ticket items that I know will be due later in the year, so in case of a huge emergency, it is there. If my income were $1500 more a year, Dave would recommend an EF of $1000, and that's what I am aiming for again. After both credit cards are paid off, I will focus on increasing that EF to at least 6 months' worth of income, but right now, I think it will be okay at $1000.

So for today at least :-), I'm going to put $100 each month into savings and snowball $200 to the credit card with the lowest balance. This should restore the EF and pay off the credit card both by June. Then I can start attacking the other card. There just might be a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel after all.