Well, first of all, our new windows are way more secure than our old ones. But that’s not what this is about. We have decided to use the emergency fund to pay down the debt. It just doesn’t make sense to have all of this money sitting there while we pay finance charges on a huge balance. I have about 18 months to finish paying off the debt and save enough money for closing costs. Totally doable. Maybe. I’m certainly going to try.

But, that leaves us without a true emergency fund. We’ll have the bumper fund in the checking account for minor emergencies, but major emergencies will be beyond us for a while. We are in pretty good health and, if it comes to it, we have credit available. It’s not ideal, but it’s what I’ve got. I won’t sleep quite as well until we’ve started saving for the house fund again and have money available for emergencies (the house fund and the emergency fund being one and the same for a while). Once we get the new house, we will save a true emergency fund that we won’t tap for any reason short of job loss or dismemberment. At least we’ll start the new house with no real debt and be able to start immediately saving.

I hate having to give up the money we have saved but it makes the most sense.