Money you can reach on a Saturday night
An emergency fund is measured by the hour it can be reached. The same savings can be minutes away or two working days away, depending on where they sit.
Section
Money and preparedness
Preparing on a household budget without making the household weaker.
Other sections Wild ediblesFood storageAt home when the grid is downOutdoorsAwareness
Preparedness costs money, and these pages are about fitting it into an ordinary household budget without leaving the household more exposed than before. One makes the case for economic redundancy: more than one way of bringing money in, so that losing a single job does not sink everything, along with skills that can earn and fixed costs kept low. Another looks at how one builder put up a small self-sufficient solar cabin for under $4,000, and at which of the ideas behind it carry over to an ordinary house.
The economic redundancy page also puts the plainest layer first: before any investment, an emergency fund in cash, kept somewhere safe and easy to reach.
The habits that serve one purchase serve the rest. Buy in stages, let an emergency fund grow alongside the stockpile, and before committing to a monthly payment, work out what it would look like after a lost paycheck.
Economic redundancy: two incomes are one, and one is none
Preparedness means a second way to make fire and a second source of water. The same logic applies to the money that pays for everything else.
How to build a self-sufficient cabin for under $4,000
Not a log mansion, more a well-equipped shed, but paid for in cash and independent of the grid. What went into one well-known cheap solar cabin.