For the first year I lived alone in Austin, I had zero savings. Every month, rent left, then utilities left, then food, and what stayed in my account felt too small to do anything with. Then one month my laptop broke and I had nothing to fall back on. That scared me enough to change how I thought about money. This post is about what I did after that, and what I wish I had started doing sooner.
My first paycheck at my Austin tech job in June 2022 felt big. It was more money than I had ever seen come in at one time.
Then rent left my account three days later and the number got small again fast.
I remember staring at what was left and thinking, okay, this is fine, I still have enough for food and the other bills. And I did. But there was nothing extra. Nothing sitting there for if something broke or if I got sick or if something just went wrong.
I did not save anything for the first several months. I told myself I would start when I had more money. That is the thing about that plan though. More money does not just show up. You have to make the save happen on purpose.
The Month My Laptop Died
It was early 2023. My laptop, which I used for everything including work from home some days, just stopped one morning. The screen went black and did not come back.
I needed a replacement fast. I looked at my bank account. There was maybe $180 in there outside of what I needed for rent and food that month.
A basic laptop that could do what I needed was at least $500. I put it on a credit card. Then I spent the next two months paying that off while also paying rent, and those two months were tight in a way that made me feel stressed every single day.
My coworker Sarah, who had been renting in Austin longer than me and had been through a few rough patches herself, asked me one day why I looked so tired. I told her what happened. She said something simple. She said, even $20 a week adds up. You just have to start.
I had heard that kind of advice before and always brushed it off. But standing there having just paid off a surprise credit card bill, it landed differently.
Why Saving Feels Impossible When Rent Is High
I want to say this clearly because I think a lot of people feel this and think it is just them.
When rent takes $1,450 out of a paycheck and then utilities take another $150 and food takes another $250, what is left can feel too small to count as savings. If you have $100 left over, putting $20 into savings feels like you are just moving a small number from one place to another. It does not feel like progress.
But that feeling is the trap. Because $20 a week is $1,040 a year. That is more than enough to cover a broken laptop. It is close to a full month of groceries. It is something real.
The problem is not that the amount is too small. The problem is that saving $20 feels pointless when you are staring at a $1,450 rent charge. The two numbers are so different that the small one feels like it does not matter.
It does matter. It just takes time to see it.
What I Actually Did
After the laptop thing, I set up a second savings account at my bank. Just a plain one, nothing special. I named it “do not touch.”
Then I set up an auto transfer of $25 every payday. That was it. I did not think about it. I did not log in and move it manually. It just happened.
The first month I did not even notice the $25 was gone. The second month same thing. By month four I checked the account and there was $200 in there. That was the first time saving felt real to me. Like something was actually happening.
I moved it up to $40 a transfer after that. Then $60 when I got a small raise.
Over time the goal I was working toward was three months of my basic costs covered. My rent plus utilities plus food came to roughly $1,850 a month. So three months meant I needed about $5,500 set aside.
That felt huge at first. But I stopped thinking about the total and just thought about the next transfer.
How Long It Actually Took
I want to be honest here because a lot of posts talk about emergency funds like you can build one in a few months if you just try hard enough.
At $60 every two weeks, I was putting in $1,560 a year. To get to $5,500 took me about three and a half years of steady saving, with a few months where I had to pull some out for real problems and then build back up.
That is a long time. But here is the thing. By the time I was 18 months in, I had around $2,000 saved. That $2,000 saved me twice. Once when my AC broke and I had to buy two window units fast. Once when I had a gap between direct deposits and rent was due.
I did not need the full $5,500 to feel safer. Even $1,000 changes how a bad month feels.
What to Do When You Really Have Almost Nothing Left
Some months are just bad. Rent goes up. A bill comes in you forgot about. You get less hours at work. I get that some months there is truly nothing to move into savings.
Here is what helped me on those months.
I still moved something. Even $5. Even $10. It sounds silly but it kept the habit alive. The point is not the amount on the hard months. The point is that you do not quit the habit because one month was rough.
My cousin Ranjith Roy, who moved to Austin in 2023 for his MS at UT and lived with me for about a year and a half, was even tighter on money than I was as a grad student. He did the same thing. He told me he was saving $15 a week no matter what, even during finals when he was not working his part-time hours. By the time he left Austin in mid-2024 he had just over $800 set aside. That was not nothing. That was a flight home if he needed one. That was a month of groceries if something went sideways.
Small and steady beats nothing every single time.
One More Thing That Helped
I stopped keeping my savings in the same account as my regular spending money.
When it was all in one place, I always found a reason to use it. Oh, I could just grab that from my main account and put it back next week. That never worked. I never put it back next week.
Putting it in a separate account with a name that made me feel bad about touching it made a real difference. Out of sight, out of easy reach.
Some people use a totally different bank for this. I did not go that far but I can see why it works. The more steps between you and that money, the less likely you are to spend it on something that is not a real emergency.
For more on how to figure out how much of your pay should go to rent in the first place, I wrote about that here. And if you want to see all the costs that come with renting in Austin beyond just rent, this post on hidden monthly costs is a good one to read first.
FAQ
How much should I have in an emergency fund?
Most people say three to six months of your basic costs. That means rent, utilities, food, and anything else you must pay every month no matter what. For me that was around $1,850 a month, so my goal was about $5,500. If that number feels too big to start, just aim for $1,000 first. That covers most small emergencies on its own.
What if I really cannot save anything right now?
Even $5 a week is worth doing. Not because $5 changes your life fast, but because it keeps the habit going. When your money situation gets better, the habit is already there. The people I know who saved nothing during tight months had a much harder time starting again later than people who kept moving even a tiny amount.
Should I pay off debt first or build an emergency fund?
Both at the same time if you can. Put a small amount toward savings each week and use the rest of any extra money to pay down the debt. The reason you do not want to wait on savings is that if something breaks while you are paying off debt, you will just add more debt. A small savings cushion stops that from happening.
Where should I keep my emergency fund?
A plain savings account at any normal bank works fine. Some people use a high-yield savings account to earn a little extra while the money sits there, which is worth looking into. The most important thing is that it is separate from your everyday spending account and not too easy to dip into.
How do I stop myself from using the emergency fund for things that are not real emergencies?
Write down what counts as an emergency before you need to make that call. For me it was: job loss, medical bill, something breaking that I need for work or daily life, car problem that stops me from getting to work. A concert ticket sale is not an emergency. A flight deal is not an emergency. Having the list written before the moment helps you say no to yourself when it matters.
Did having a roommate make saving easier?
Yes, a lot easier. When Ranjith was living with me on East Sixth, my rent share dropped and I could move more into savings each month. The months I saved the most were the months I was splitting costs. That is one real reason to think hard before going solo if your budget is already tight. I wrote about the full cost difference in my roommate vs living alone post.
What was the first thing I used my emergency fund for?
The AC situation I mentioned above. Two window units from Home Depot cost me $380. Before I had savings I would have put that on a card and stressed about it for weeks. Instead I just paid it and it was done. That feeling alone made three years of $25 transfers worth it.
