Personal Finance is a very unattractive topic, but one I’ve been meaning to address for a while. In light of the recent events, it became even more important to me and this made me realize how much of my previous financial efforts can make a difference when s*** hits the fan.

As you know, I recently lost my job. I’ve since applied to Employment Insurance here in Canada and got approved, which means I receive a monthly income for 42 weeks, based on how much I’ve contributed in taxes, my original income and how long I’ve been employed.

When all factors were considered, I ended up with 55% of my original income.

For many people, this would mean certain debt and despair, but for me, it means that I can live on reduced expenses until January next year, without even dipping my toes in any kind of debt. And oh, I also adopted two kittens in the meantime and I’m paying for all their exams and vaccines for the first year.

How did I do it?

Simply put: I live below my means.

Let’s look at this with some fake numbers:

Let’s say my monthly income when I was employed was $3,000.

Instead of spending every cent of that money and living paycheck to paycheck, I had set aside 20% each month for savings and investing. So every time a paycheck came, my bank app would automatically transfer $200 to my savings accounts, and $400 to my investment accounts. “Automatically” being the key word here.

This means that despite having a $3,000 income, my expenses were actually $2,400.

Enter unemployment and financial aid. The amount of aid was naturally calculated on top of my full income, which means that I now receive $1,650. It’s still $750 short of my normal expenses of $2,400, but with some drastic cuts (no more lattes or any kind of restaurants for instance) I was able to reduce my expenses to $2,000. Now I only need $350 to make ends meet.

And where would I get that extra steady income? Well, remember my automatic transfers to my savings accounts? One of them was my Emergency Fund, which I kept growing for years, specifically for this type of situation. So every month I take some funds from it to cover my expenses.

But what about the expenses with the vet? – you ask.

Good point. The Kitten Bills, as I call them, are now over $2,000. How do I get the money for them? Well, the Emergency Fund wasn’t my only fund. I also had money constantly flowing to these 5 other buckets:

• Pet Fund – for vet emergencies with my previous cat
• Travel Fund – where I’d gather money for plane tickets to visit my family back home
• Wishes Fund – for big purchases on my wish list, items that were over $200
• AC Fund – some money set aside to rent an AC during the summer
• World Cup Fund – I started it in 2022 to have money to watch the games in 2026

The money for the Kitten Bills came from scraping everything I had from those funds. In fact, today I just drained the last cents.

It was sad to see my efforts of years in those savings accounts being literally reduced to zero. But that’s life. I can’t live just out of solid financial decisions all the time. Adopting the cats was not the best move for my pocket, but the necessary one for my heart.

And so life goes on. Having the certainty that I can cover my rent and basic bills for the next 12 months takes at least a little bit of the pressure from the job search. Not that it has become a stress-free activity – I still want to crawl out of my skin every time I open LinkedIn.

I hope this post inspires you to start your own Emergency Fund. People recommend having 3 to 6 months of basic expenses covered, but you can start small, with a goal of $1,000 for instance. The key here is to have that savings account set up in a different bank from where your checking account is and automate the transfers. This way you never need to look at it, and your money grows.

With time you’ll get used to it and won’t miss the money anymore. And when the time of hardship comes, you’ll be thanking your past self, believe me.