Auckland<\/a>, knows the importance of saving money.<\/p>\nBlack, who has a 10-year-old daughter, was referred to Harris last year to help her pay down a \u201csignificant amount\u201d of debt. <\/p>\n
![\"Former]()
Former Northlander Cody Black paid off debt and started an emergency fund to benefit herself and her daughter.<\/p>\n
Not only has Black done that, she also learned valuable lessons in financial literacy, which included setting up an emergency fund. <\/p>\n
\u201cBefore working alongside her [Harris] I would pay what I had to pay [bills and rent] then use the rest to buy things for our house or I\u2019d take my daughter out. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d get a new toaster or new things \u2013 I didn\u2019t save.\u201d <\/p>\n
Black said it took six months to pay off her debt and when she did \u201cit felt like freedom\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have been in consumer debt since I was 16, I\u2019d had that stuff for over 10 years, so it felt so good. <\/p>\n
\u201cThen she said create a couple of funds to put aside money, including an emergency fund. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was nice seeing those funds grow. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen my car did need repairs, instead of stressing out … I already had that money there.\u201d <\/p>\n
What is an emergency fund and how to create one? <\/p>\n
An emergency fund is a separate savings account set aside for emergencies only, such as unexpected vet or medical expenses, dental work or urgent car repairs. <\/p>\n
Independent finance site Sorted recommends pulling together $1000 by selling stuff you don\u2019t need or saving extra hard for a while.<\/p>\n
Then put the money into its own, high-interest, savings account and regularly add to it.<\/p>\n
Harris advised people to \u201cstart small\u201d, even if it\u2019s saving $2 to $3 every week. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs mentors, we always suggest to people they at least try and have three months\u2019 worth of income in a separate account. <\/p>\n
\u201cOnce you get into a habit it becomes second nature. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you buy a coffee every working day, then forgo one coffee and put that money into your savings account. <\/p>\n
\u201cStarting to think about practical ways you can make it work.\u201d <\/p>\n
Harris suggests keeping your emergency savings with a different bank, so you don\u2019t see it every day and aren\u2019t tempted to dip into it. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s proving now that if you\u2019ve got nothing to fall back on, things are really tough. <\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people think \u2018I don\u2019t really need to save right now\u2019. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey think they\u2019ve got KiwiSaver there \u2013 but that\u2019s for retirement. <\/p>\n
\u201cAn emergency fund is something that you\u2019ve got to call on should you need to. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s giving peace of mind.\u201d <\/p>\n
Jenny Ling is a senior journalist at the Northern Advocate. She has a special interest in covering human interest stories, along with finance, roading, and social issues. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe\u2019ve got to start thinking about how to make it work for us. \u201cTo even have a buffer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[20299,665,806,682,3269,138,802,5232,15974,135781,5988,295,16609,111,139,1067,11225,69,12937,168623,26213,1515,61,5619,11226,6149],"class_list":["post-357286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-20299","tag-around","tag-as","tag-being","tag-build","tag-business","tag-costs","tag-create","tag-emergency","tag-encouraged","tag-families","tag-fund","tag-iran","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-northland","tag-northlanders","tag-nz","tag-prices","tag-reigns","tag-soar","tag-surge","tag-to","tag-uncertainty","tag-urged","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}