My parents (and Dave Ramsey, of course!) have always encouraged me to have an emergency fund, but I never knew how important it would be until this past summer!

One evening after spending the day editing, I was closing down my applications, ejecting my external hard drives so they wouldn’t blink in the middle of the night (one of the joys of having an office in your room! #smallbusinessprobs) and cleaning up my desk area. I went to close my laptop screen, and immediately heard a cracking noise. Much to my horror, the end of my charging cord had made its way in between my laptop screen and keyboard, causing my screen to crack while closing it! I was heading to Chicago in two days and needed my laptop fixed – immediately. Needless to say, a fun trip to the Apple store and $722 later, we were back in business! It’s pretty sickening to think that in one quick moment, things (very expensive things) can break!

The one factor you can always count on in business is this – equipment will break, programs will need updated, blogs will get hacked… you get the gist! One of these days, an expense that you never could have expected will come up! What do you do in those moments?

Build up an emergency fund. $500, $1000, $2000… slowly but surely, build up a chunk of cash that you can rely on in the case of an emergency. You have to be prepared! What if you drop your lens during an engagement session? Yes, your business insurance will cover it, but you need to buy a replacement now for the wedding you have coming up this weekend! You can’t wait for an insurance claim to be processed – yes, that will happen eventually, but so often there isn’t time for that. I’ve found that expenses tend to come up at the most inopportune times. ;) Enter emergency fund here. 

You can’t prepare for everything, but you can take intentional steps to be prepared for the unexpected that life and business will throw your way! You will be so thankful you did so – I know I was!

Much love,
Jessica Lauren