What Classifies as an Emergency to You? How Do You Handle It?

(edit end of 2024:  Originally written when I was seeking to coach Christian single moms around stress, money, and feeding their kids a healthy diet.  The advice here is applicable to everyone however, so it stays posted here)

Emergencies: What goes through your mind when you hear that word? Do you think of sirens blaring, someone bleeding, a kid jumping out of a fire-ravaged home? Or do you think of opening the cupboard door to find your favourite chocolate bar wrapper nearly empty or a chipped finger nail when the salon is closed? Just like your expense list, wants and needs in 1st world culture tend to skew our concept of what counts as an emergency.

I wrote this week about what classifies as the bare basics necessary to live from a place of contentment. I did not break down the expense sheet as videos and articles and an evergreen challenge go into that topic already. Coaching with me would go even deeper as we look at your particular sheet and discuss it to find out why you labelled some items wants and others needs. This underlying reason establishes a baseline that you draw where approaching that line becomes an emergency.

When you figure out which half of your typical pay periods in a month will be used to pay which bills, a missed pay period can become an emergency as those bills struggle to be covered. Figuring out how to make the pantry stretch to the next pay period becomes an exercise in out-of-the-box creativity trying to ensure everyone is adequately fed while the grocery list grows on the fridge door. Getting down to where your creativity has resulted in maybe a day’s worth of food left becomes an emergency situation. How soon is pay day? Do we have any change hiding in the cushions?

These kinds of emergencies are not uncommon among single parents, particularly it seems, single moms. But having too many items that should have been labelled as wants in the needs column will make these emergencies worse. So your first step is establishing the bare-basic staples your home requires to have adequate shelter, clothing, food and transportation. This base-line doesn’t include treats, nice-to-haves, junk food, foods high in sugar, chemicals or food-colourings, and while it does include hygeine, it doesn’t include pampering. Remember, base-line staples. I mentioned the other day that what you’d pack for a camping trip is a good place to start, minus the above list of no-no’s. Understanding this base-line makes life a lot more affordable and can allow you to build up a savings account as discussed last week.

One of the major goals of a savings account is having something set aside in case of emergencies. . . real emergencies! The rent won’t get paid or the electricity or heating bills will get cut off if they aren’t paid! A child has a bicycle accident and needs stitches or dental work. I actually had this happen in my own home and if it weren’t for a set of funds I felt God saying NOT to spend, we wouldn’t have had the money to pay for the dental work required after the accident.

It is important to understand that running out of a want or nice-to-have is not a real emergency. You already know how to maintain your fingernails, so there’s no need for the salon except for special occasions or that girls night out. That chocolate bar has too many chemicals and waxes in it to be the healthfood the cocoa would otherwise be, so its a treat, not a necessity and running out isn’t a real emergency. That favourite TV show being cancelled or missed because your bus took too long to get home isn’t an emergency. There are other ways to unwind that are actually healthier for your mind, emotions and social state.

Running out of food before payday however, is a sign of one of two and possibly both scenarios playing out. 1) Someone in the home eating more than necessary at or between meals, and what should have lasted 3 weeks barely lasted 1.5 as a result. In this scenario, whoever is over-eating needs to be reminded to stay within their bounds because their selfishness is affecting others in the household. 2) The kids are growing and just happened to have a growth spurt the month you get paid later rather than sooner, so food needs changed at a really bad time. A third possibility exists where you misjudged the currently typical rate at which staples are being eaten and now need to remind yourself to buy one more can/package/bottle of something next time you can go shopping. Do the assessment to reduce the chances of this emergency in the future.

But don’t stop there. The emergency has to be dealt with so you and the kids don’t go hungry before payday. This situation means dipping into that emergency savings account you had been trickling into. There might be enough there for a grocery run, there might not, it depends on how soon since the last emergency you’ve been able to pay into it. Ideally though, there is something there that you can make a quick run to the store to shore things up for payday. Don’t use the entire amount in your emergency fund. But use enough to stay fed and healthy.

Don’t have an emergency fund or couldn’t get it going again after the last emergency? Most towns have at least one foodbank and/or at least one church who has a benevolence ministry where they hand out food or food vouchers. Make a phone call or two and arrange to have a small hamper dropped off to tide you over to payday. If you are like me, the thought of having to ask for help can be not only intimidating, but darn near shameful because it means admitting that you aren’t able to do everything on your own. Because you are a single mom, at times you will have to ask for help, whether its for repairing the car, finding a pair of shoes for a kid with odd feet for their age, or yes, grocery shopping.

It is perfectly ok to accept bags of hand-me-down clothing. Sort through it and only pick out a) what fits and b) what each person actually likes and will wear. No one outside the home needs to know how you and the kids got your clothes. People give away really nice stuff at times and occasionally you’ll find yourself dressed better this way than if you tried to go shopping for brand new clothing at the store. In other words, designer brands you could only dream of because they are way outside your affordability range. These can show up in second-hand clothing bags. They have for us way too many times to count! So if you have a kid whose growth spurt is creating it’s own emergencies in the closet, hit the thrift stores and accept the used clothing offers. Your kid may just get the envy of some of their friends because of what God provided through this means.

Even if you have a good job or run a good business, these tips can help you set up your household expenses and expectations such that these types of emergencies are easily dealt with, and the big emergencies move from this level, to the medical level or to the sudden news of having to move in two months’ time and being able to scramble to find another home with minimal financial stress.

Freedom and peace of mind to handle emergencies comes from understanding your baseline of household expenses, from there being able to build an emergency fund, and from there be better positioned to handle what suddenly flies up out of the blue. We’ve only covered emergencies that affect your pocketbook today. What other types of emergencies have you had to face and how did you handle them?

Related Posts

Senior Health, Nutrition, and Your Pocketbook

Downsized into a Tiny Home! The Shock, Dismay, and Practicing What I Preach!

Saving When You Have Nothing (or so they made you think)

How We THINK About Our Provision Can Help, or Hinder Life Improvement