This is a little funny story.
Our mortgage is due on Wednesday next week but we get paid on Thursday. If I pay the mortgage on Thursday there will be a late fee. In order to pay on Wednesday I'd have to use the overdraft and pay an overdraft fee. I figured it out and the overdraft fee would be less than the late mortgage payment fee and I guess it's better not to pay the mortgage late.
Ok, so I've been working out the best scenario for this situation in my mind for at least a week until today when it dawned on me that I have $460 in the emergency fund. I guess that paying the mortgage on time isn't quite an emergency but really I'm laughing at myself for not having thought of it earlier: Use $300 from our emergency fund to pay the mortgage on time and the very next day put the $300 right back into the emergency fund. No fees. Mortgage gets paid on time. And even though I'll be using our emergency fund it will only be for one day. We've lived paycheck to paycheck for so long that using money from savings for this little dilemma didn't even cross my mind.
I guess having an emergency fund isn't such a bad thing after all : )
Great solution! You have saved yourself some $$ and not given anything to the banks. Excellent!
ReplyDeleteSome banks let you change the date you pay your mortgage to fall in line with payday. It can't hurt to ask sometimes, particularly if people don't have the emergency fund to fall back on
ReplyDeletePerfect solution.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's what emergency fund is for!
ReplyDeleteI think that's an excellent use of the emergency fund! :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for this very helpful post! I will get my first paycheck in a few days and it will go directly into savings for our emergency fund.
ReplyDelete