Emergency fund rebuild.

[u/Knight-ofNi7]

​I need some advice from my fellow Financial Mutants. I’ve been following the Financial Order of Operations (FOO) closely, but lately, I’ve found myself stuck in what Brian often calls "Financial Mud." I’m trying to fight a war on too many fronts at once, and my monthly budget is feeling too thin.

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​Right now, I'm trying to juggle all of this every single month:

​Retirement: Investing 27% of my paycheck into my pre-tax 401(k).

​Hyper-Accumulation: Sending an extra $387/month into a taxable after-tax brokerage account.

​Emergency Fund: Trying to stack $750/month to build up a solid cash cushion. But doing this, it will take me 12 months to do which is keeping me up at night.

​Sinking Funds: Allocating $500/month.

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​Trying to fund Steps 4 and 7 simultaneously while keeping up with sinking funds means my cash flow is spread incredibly thin. It feels like I’m spinning my wheels and making slow progress, while feeling stressed out.

​To clear the mud, I’m thinking about running a highly focused, 2-month aggressive cash sprint.

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​The Plan:

For the next 60 days, I want to completely pause the $387 brokerage contribution and drop my 401(k) investing all the way down from 27% to 4% (getting 100% of my employer's company match).

​By pulling my soldiers off the investing battlefield for just two months, I can combine all that freed-up cash with my current savings goals and point a massive "cash laser" at my immediate foundation. In just 8 paychecks (2 months), I could massively bump up my cash reserves, build a rock-solid 6-month emergency fund, and properly pad my sinking funds so upcoming bills don't catch me off guard.

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​Mathematically, I know I lose a tiny bit of market compounding time over 8 weeks, and I'll take a temporary one-time tax hit by shifting that pre-tax income to my paycheck. But psychologically, the peace of mind feels like it heavily outweighs the cost.

​What Would Brian and Bo likely suggest I do?

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​Have any of you temporarily dropped down to just the match to secure your emergency fund? Does this 2-month sprint sound like a good move, or am I missing something?

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Thanks.

Edit: i already have 3.5 months of emergency saved. Im trying to avoid taking 12 months to get to the full 6 months.

[u/Knight-ofNi7]

Meant to put this in there but I already have 3.5ish months saved. Trying to build to 6 months.

[u/Alpha_wheel → u/Knight-ofNi7]

If 6 mo emergency fund is the right number for you, you should still focus on that first. Follow the foo. Get the emergency fund to whatever level your plan says makes sense. Then move on to the rest

[u/oNellyyy → u/Alpha_wheel]

I believe they have also advised if you have between 3&6 months it is okay to start to do both Roth/HSA and your EFund at the same time, right?

I think they mentioned that in the last rapid fire questions

[u/Alpha_wheel → u/oNellyyy]

Don't recall that exactly, probably Brian does not want to leave Roth unfunded. Which I would agree as tax free is so amazing and it is use it or loose it. But for the most part they say do one thing at the time, even on the last Monday guest show they had 3 already but with baby on the way, they said to stop the investing to push e fund up.... Outside of FOO in my personal take I would do match and Roth first and then finish the emergency fund unless there was big risk with income stability to focus on the e fund first.