Concept
Starter emergency fund
A starter emergency fund is a small cash cushion, saved before you start paying debts down aggressively, that covers one ordinary surprise so the next broken phone or car repair does not go straight back on a card.
In The Total Money Makeover, Dave Ramsey puts a small cash reserve before the debt payoff, as the first of his Baby Steps. The reasoning is practical: people who pour every spare lira into debt with nothing in the bank are one flat tyre away from a new balance, and each relapse feels like proof that the plan does not work. Ramsey gives a fixed dollar figure for American readers. That number does not travel, and with high inflation a fixed figure loses value quickly anyway. A better rule is to size it to one ordinary surprise in your own life: a car repair, a dental bill, a month of a utility spike. Keep it in a separate account you do not see every day, and refill it immediately after using it. The cushion is deliberately small. Its job is not security for months; it is to protect the debt plan from the first accident.
A real-life example
Ayşe, a teacher in Konya, has been paying extra on her cards for three months when the washing machine breaks. With no savings, the new one goes on instalments and her total rises again. On her second attempt she first sets aside 15,000 lira, about the cost of one large repair, in a separate account. When the car needs brakes in month five, the cushion pays, she refills it the next month, and the debt keeps falling.
How to use it
- 1Estimate the cost of one typical surprise in your life, not someone else's figure.
- 2Save that amount in a separate account before making extra debt payments.
- 3When you use it, pause extra payments and refill it first.