The Emergency Fund Tested

Pooja built an emergency fund of six months of expenses and told her friends about it with the pride of someone who had climbed a mountain. They nodded and quietly changed the subject. Then the laptop broke, the car needed repairs and the dentist said the words ‘root canal’ in the same month. Pooja opened the fund and watched it shrink like ice in a cup of tea. But she paid every bill without a single loan. ‘It was meant for emergencies,’ she told her friends, smiling, ‘and look, I finally found out what that word means.’ They apologised for not taking her seriously.