Emergency Funds are incredibly important in every person’s life. An emergency fund essentially covers the surprises of life whether that’s a medical emergency or something as simple as repairing your car. Having a stash of money you can rely on can really go a long way.

How to build an emergency fund

Here are the steps you need to build an effective emergency fund;

1. Calculate how much you'll save

Before you start you need to calculate how much you want to save for emergencies. This is tricky because you can never really know what emergencies will come your way. However, you can get a general idea of them by calculating how much you’ve spent on emergencies in the past. To help you with this, a platform such as Kwaba assumes 40% of your saivings as emergency funds and keeps it in a jar for their users to access at any point of need.

2. Set a monthly savings goal

Once you have been able to successfully figure out your holistic savings goal you can now begin to break the cost down per month. For instance, if you calculated you need to save N240,000 in a year for emergencies you would have to save N240,000 ÷ 12 = N20,000 a month. Now all you need to achieve this is to save N50,000 monthly towards your rent on Kwaba and an emergency fund of N20,000 is automatically available at your disposal.

3. Save first

If you’re part of the “I’ll save later” crew it is time to repent. You’re never going to get any money saved that way. The trick to savings is to save immediately. Once you set aside some money specifically for your savings on the Kwaba app, an instant emergency fund is automatially set aside for you to take out at any time.

4. Make it automatic

Having a plan for your emergency fund is good but executing the plan is even better! You need to stay consistent for this to be effective. To help ensure consistency, you can use an app such as Kwaba to automatically save towards your rent and keep building your emergency fund simultaneously.

5. Keep the change

A great way to save money if you spend a lot of cash is to take whatever change you have from the day and put them in a box or jar. It can be as little as N20 or N1000, When the container fills up you can take it to a bank, deposit the money and move it to a reliable savings platform. Kwaba helps you save towards your rent and build your emergency funds at the same time.

6. Assess and adjust contributions

Check-in after a few months to see how you’re doing. Is your plan effective? If you’re not able to save as much you planned maybe you should try adjusting. If saving every month is difficult for you, you can make it every 2 months. Whatever is most comfortable for you. ’

Financial storms are part of life and it’s our duty to make sure we’re as prepared for them as possible. Saving platforms such as Kwaba ensures that you are prepared for the rainy days.

To visit our website to download the Kwaba app, kindly click on the link below

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