How can I build an Emergency fund & start investing? Money Dilemma eps 7

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]anonymous wrote to us and said, "Jen, can you please help me figure out how I can start building my emergency fund as well as get into investing because I'm kind of clueless in terms of how I can make sure that I best achieve this." And so, obviously, I am keen to look at anonymous case. Without wasting any time, let us get into it. Cue that intro.

[00:00:27]Hi, and welcome to my channel. If you're new here, my name is Numal. I'm a content creator as well as currently self-employed. In this channel, we do personal finances, lifestyle, as well as career growth. So, if any of those things are things that interest you, do make sure that you join us by clicking that red subscribe button on the bottom.

[00:00:44]And if you're already part of this family, please make sure that you hit the thumbs up button. I would really, really appreciate it. It's one of the biggest ways that you can show support to this channel. And if you can watch the ads as well, I do welcome that. So, let us get into anonymous case. We're going to go into her email and see what she's dealing with. I hope that you are well. Allow me to say this big thanks for the great help that you are giving us. Thank you. Thank you so much, Anonymous. I'm a 35-year-old married female with three kids. I would love to get some advice on building a merchant fund and also starting to invest for the future. My take-home is currently 10,890.

[00:01:22]I'm starting a new job in May and the salary will be increasing to 20,510 before deductions. So my take-home might be roughly 15,000. My monthly expenses are 10,000 no 10% tithe which is 1,200.

[00:01:38]16year-old fees which is 1,300 6 fees 2,100. Giving and charity 500 hair 500 pocket money 600. The rest of the stuff is covered by my husband. I usually try to save at least a,000 but I always end up using the money. Please advise on the emergency fund. I would love I would love some advice on how to go about investing maybe a,000 per month. I have watched your videos on investing as little as a,000 but I'm clueless on these things. So I probed further because the state the the the statement where she says that she does try to save a,000 per month but end up using that. I wanted to understand what does she use that money on or what does she end up using the savings on because if we understand then we can plan for that. So then she says that I normally use them on whatever I run out of during the month. For instance, this month I had a,000 saved and as always but my daughter joined the extra class in school and I ended up paying that last week. I don't have any investments yet but I would love to start even if it's something small. And then I also did ask her which bank does she use because I wanted to see in terms of the suggestions that I'm going to give her if she will be able to achieve that with the bank that she has. Let us see how we can help anonymous. She doesn't really have a lot of things that she's carrying in terms of responsibilities as her husband covers majority of the things.

[00:03:03]However, she does have some things that she handles as a woman of the house. I love the fact that you want to now build an emergency fund and also get into investing because by doing that you'll be setting your family up. We don't just want to say as much as the husband is covering majorities of the things then we leave everything to him which means that investing savings we leave it everything to him because as a woman you must always have a bag that you are building on the side in terms of savings and investments because one day that will come in handy and this is coming from someone that was raised by a stay-at-home mom who relied heavily on my on my father and when my father passed on things just turned out for the worst. So it's always good for women to have something on the side that they are building. So you are doing well anonymous by saying I want to have these things. So before I give you my recommendations or my suggestions, I do just want to state these mistakes that I want you to avoid. Because if you avoid these mistakes, then the recommendations that I'm going to give you, you will be able to implement. But if you do miss these mistakes, then you are not you are likely not going to achieve any of the things that I'm going to suggest to you.

[00:04:10]The first mistake that I want you to avoid is right now you've started the new job, right? You said you're starting you started in May. Congratulations also on that. And my thing is to you do not prolong any of the suggestions that I'm going to give you any further. Do not say that I'm going to give myself one month, two month to two months to just get used to the income or maybe to just get a breather so that I can cover one, two, and three things in the house.

[00:04:35]Please do not look around the house and start looking at things that you can now start fixing and start buying new things or start introducing. Please do not prolong any of the things that I'm going to tell you. May you must start. Second thing is do not add other expenses.

[00:04:50]That's why I'm saying as a woman I know that we have so many things that we see in the house that needs fixing and so forth. Please do not add any expenses under your bag. Don't do that because if you do that, you're going to derail yourself and I'm telling you, it's going to be hard to recover. You are you then once you add other expenses from here, you will be waiting for the next job before you can do the things that I'm going to suggest to you. So now you've just gotten a new job and you are going to get an income that you're not used to. Do not do these things where you say, I'm just going to wait until it's June. I'm just I just want to add something. I just want to buy a new couch. Don't do that. Another one is that we are going to come up with a plan. Make sure that you follow that plan. There mustn't be an instance whereby you don't have a plan or you are not following that plan cuz if you don't, you're going to derail yourself and coming back to things and fixing things again is not going to be easy.

[00:05:43]So, please make sure that you avoid these mistakes that I've shared with you. Three important things. Do not wait. Do not uh add expenses. And lastly, have a plan and follow it. So here are my recommendations in terms of what you can do. So we know that you're going to get a new job and that new job you're saying roughly it's going to be about 15,000 take home. Let us minus what you're used to paying for which is 10,890.

[00:06:08]That is going to leave you with 4,110.

[00:06:11]This is money that you are not used to.

[00:06:13]So the mistake that I spoke about is to say don't get used to this money. This money is not yours. Do not take it as something that is yours and something that now means that you must now inflate your lifestyle. Don't do that. You've got 4,000 to work with. And this 4,000 is going to allow you to do the things that you want. Build an emergency fund as well as start investing. But before we get into building an emergency fund and investing, here's the first thing that I need you to do. You need to build a solution fund. As the woman of the house, you have seen that you end up being the one that is responsible for covering the things that finish in the house or some of the expenses that come up related to kids. So, here's what you're going to do. You're going to build a solution fund. And this solution fund or a syncing fund, this is this saving is going to be is going to be there to help you when these expenses come up. When things finish in the house and you have to replenish them, when things come up in the school with the kids at school, you will be able to cover it. So have a have a solution fund. That's going to be the first thing. You're going to save up for a solution fund. Secondly, you're then going to build your emergency fund. And then thirdly, you're going to get into investing. How are we going to do this?

[00:07:20]Target at at least 8,000 for a solution fund. On your FnB app, create a savings account. And then in the savings is must be money that is easily accessible.

[00:07:28]We're not putting it under any notice or anything like that. You're going to put a target of 8,000 and you're going to work towards this each and every month.

[00:07:37]Do not break this 4,000 into small bite pieces so that you can cover all these things at once. We want to do them in stages like steps, right? So, we're going to take the first step. The first step is going to be the syncing fund, solution fund. The target here is going to be 8,000. How you going to do this?

[00:07:53]4,000 each and every month you are going to be putting towards this so that you can get to your goal much quicker. So, that means that May, June, you will be done with your solution fund. Now I know that you might be sitting you might be watching this and saying Jen the in income uh the increase in income mean that my my tithe also must increase.

[00:08:11]What I'm asking you is to say pause on anything everything you are already paying tithe you are already giving and I'm not saying that that's enough but I'm saying you are already doing the most right. So what you're going to do is if you really feel that guilty go to your corner praying corner and ask God to say God give me grace and forgive me right now right now. These are the things that I want to take care of.

[00:08:35]These are things that I want to build and you've given me this provision and I ask that you allow me to use this provision to fast track the growth of my family financially to set up my my family financially and for me to do that I need this provision that you have provided to me. Yes, I know that my t is supposed to be 10% of whatever that I'm getting. But right now, I need to set my family up as soon as things are in order. I'm going to come back to the drawing board and make sure that I set everything right cuz I know that people that pay tithes and give a lot, they tend to have guilt. And because you've got guilt, you end up feeling like there's something wrong that you are doing. Then the second one is going to be your emergency fund. So what I did was I said, "Okay, when it comes to your responsibilities, what are they?" the biggest one, the the the most essential one cuz remember your maintenance fund is made up of your essentials. So the essentials here are the school fees only. So I then said that money for the school fees times 6 months then it gave us around 21,000. So what I'm going to ask you to do is to push to have a target of 30,000 for your emergency fund. Now how are you going to be able to achieve this? My baby's up by the way so I need to attend to her from that 4,000. Remember you would have done May June done with your solution fund. Then July going forward, we're going to be building your emergency fund. You're going to be saying 30,000 divided by 3,000. So every month you're going to be allocating 3,000 that you're going to be saving towards your emergency fund. It's going to take you 10 months to be able to build up to 30,000. So from July going forward when you will be building your emergency fund up until you get to 30,000. The route that you can take here cuz you already have your solution fund on FNB. We don't want to put your emergency fund also on FNB. So my suggestion is open a Frank account. When you open a frank account, you create a goal, your emergency fund, and you set a target of 30,000. And then every month you're going to be putting money into this. And then you're going to only be saying 100% goes to the money market.

[00:10:32]What I'm trying to avoid is for you to have all of your money in one place cuz it's easy to get confused and it's easy to get to get your head inflated thinking that, oh, I've got a lot of money. If you don't want to go the route of Frank, you can go the route of your of a time bank. I want to then move into your investing. You are now going to get into investing and when are you going to be investing a,000 per month as you have said is what you're going to be putting away each and every month and you are going to be using this to buy assets on easy equities. I want you to get used to easy equities and how it works and buying assets. And here when you start buying assets, you're not going to be buying you're not going to be putting money on a TFSA on easy equities. you're just going to be putting it on a normal investment and you're going to be buying one thing and one thing only each and every month and that's going to be an S&P 500 up until you get to 46,000. Then you're going to take that 46,000 you're going to sell the the the the S&P 500 and take that money and put it in your TFSA then you buy again S&P 500. So we are going to use the normal easy equity uh investment account for building up to 46,000 but then we are not just letting the money sit. we're still investing.

[00:11:41]It's in the market and buying something that grows well. This is money that you're not going to be playing with.

[00:11:47]This is money that you're not going to be touching. So, when do you start with investing as well? While you're building your emergency fund, you're going to be building your your your investment portfolio as well. So, 3,000 will go towards your emergency fund. 1,000 is going to go towards your investments.

[00:12:03]You are going to do this up until you get to the end of 10 months. When you get to the end of 10 months, right, you are now going to be you now going to stop with your emergency fund cuz you're going to have your 30,000. Then you're going to be having this 3,000 that's going to be coming back to you to say, "What else can you do?" Now, you can then go back to the drawing board and say 10% giving or 10% tithing. Let me do that. And then whatever that is remaining, I want you to take that money and top up on your investments. You already have a solution fund. You already have an emergency fund. It will happen that there will be times whereby you will be dipping into your solution fund because your solution fund is for those things that come up in the month.

[00:12:42]So every time you take out money here, you must replenish it and you do that in the following month when you set up your budget. But we've covered three things here. We've covered the solution fund which you need to start with now in May.

[00:12:54]As soon as we're done, we're building emergency fund. Please don't mind the sounds from my daughter. She's up and she's playing. So second thing is that you are building your merchant fund for the next 10 months from July. You're going to be building your emergency fund up until you get to 30,000. As soon as you have done with 30,000 then you are going to continue with your investments which would have which would have started in July on easy equities as well. You're going to top up that. So maybe top up your investment with a,500 once you get once you are done with your emergency fund. So you take 1,500 you add it to a,000 it now becomes 2,500 that you are putting towards your investments. Then you're going to continue with your investments that way.

[00:13:36]And then whatever that is left you will then use to make sure that each and every month in your budget you are giving yourself an allow you are giving yourself an allocation of miscellaneous.

[00:13:47]The mistake that a lot of people do when it comes to budgets is that their budget is so strict. And that is why you end up finding that you save but then you go back to those savings is because your budget leaves no room for you to be able to take care of anything that comes up in the month. So as much as the solution fund will be there and your emergency fund will be there, I don't want you to be just willy-nilly dipping into your emergency fund, I also want you to be responsible with your solution fund. And so what you will do is that as soon as you're done with your solution fund and you are done with your emergency fund, I want you to get used actually you should do that now in May because remember you're saying that you were saving about a,000 per month and then you end up using that money. I want you to try that each and every month allocate 500 rand in your budget and this is going to be a new budget item for you. Allocate miscellaneous item. It's going to have miscellaneous and then you're going to allocate 500 per month. This is going to allow you to be able to take care of anything that finishes in the house. So maybe if you feel like in another month you have about a,000, put the,000 under miscellaneous. The goal here is to make sure that you've got funds to be able to take care of anything that comes up without running towards your savings.

[00:15:03]You once you have set up all of these things, honestly, you'll be fine. The goal here is to make sure that as soon as you start getting paid, you do not wait. I've had people that are closest to me who would get money and then instead of and I will sit with them and say, "Okay, here's the plan. Let's do 1 2 3 4 right and then they agree and then after that they go and not do that. They go and sit with the money and not do anything and not implement the plan and then few months down the line you find out that the money has been depleted.

[00:15:35]Same thing with someone getting a new in a new salary. They sit, they wait and wait and then they start seeing things that they should be doing in the house and so forth. Then you find that all of that money is now gone each and every month because it's taken by new expenses that you have introduced in your finances. So don't make that mistake.

[00:15:54]That's why I'm so firm that don't do it.

[00:15:56]If I'm going to tell you the reason why I was able to get out of a 100,000 worth of debt and be able to build a portfolio right now of over 300,000. It is because when I got my promotion, I did not inflate my lifestyle. I did not change I did not change anything in my expenses.

[00:16:15]I continued with everything as they were and then I took whatever was the difference and I put it towards my debts and I was able to pay off those debts within 18 months. And as soon as I was done with that, then I was able to focus on saving for building up my emergency fund of which I was able to build up up to 100,000. And then I was able to also get into investing. And so I'm not talking about bluff here. I'm talking about things that I've done. And when I'm saying avoid these mistakes, these are things that I've seen other people do as well. And there is a reason why they are still stuck financially. They still don't have savings. they still don't have any investments because they decided to wait. They decided to say, "Let me wait a little bit." And they also decided to add expenses cuz expenses they get added gang and then the next thing all of the 4,000 is going to be gone and then you're going to have to wait for another promotion again before you can start building these things. So, let us not make that mistake anonymize. I'm really, really begging and I'm asking you, do not make that mistake. I'm going to close it off right here. I hope that you guys found value.

[00:17:19]If you've got any more recommendations for Anonymous, leave them on the comment section. So, with that being said, I'll see you guys on the next one. Please take care and stay safe. Bye.