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What emergencies could justify a highly liquid emergency fund?
If you engage in any kind of dangerous activity, the training courses will often state that an accident is not the result of a simple error.  Examples of this include SCUBA and motorcycle training.  Properly maintained equipment and training will mitigate many emergencies.  Recently my dive buddy was 60' down, and ran out of air due to a tank O ring failure.  She did not panic, and all of the dive team rallied to get her to the surface without anyone getting hurt, or even coming close to it. Financial tragedies are similar.  In some cases, a single event triggers an avalanche of events that leads to tragedy.  For example, hard economic times may lead to an employer doing 5% pay cuts across the board.  However, they also cut bonuses and other ancillary pay items.  This leads to a real cut of 20-25% of income.  Leading a true cash flow emergency.  As such cutbacks are needed, and this might put a strain on an already shaky relationship, this leads to that relationship ending, requiring more cash.  Perhaps a car dies in this process or some household item needs repairing.  Sure one can borrow money, but this tends to exasperate the avalanche rather than solve it.    Having a low debt and a liquid emergency fund stops the avalanche in its tracks. In the case cited above issues would have been solved if the person lived off of 50% of their income rather than the way most people live (paycheck-to-paycheck).  Also if there were savings for the car repair then that becomes a pain, but not a true stress. Think of a liquid emergency fund as "properly maintained equipment".  It allows you to build a financial life on a solid foundation.   In my own case, I attempted to live and invest without an emergency fund.  It just did not work.  I often had to liquidate investments at in opportune times, and could never really hold onto money.  With the foundation of an emergency fund, one can build a prosperous life for one's self. You are welcome to try it your way, but if you fall, hopefully you will remember this answer and build your foundation first.