Comments on: Do You Have An Opportunity Fund?

By: Shanti

Shanti — Sat, 10 May 2008 21:44:42 +0000

What a fantastic idea! I am out of debt – after years of sacrifice and struggle (never mind my whining… I got myself into debt, didn’t I?), I’m in the process of saving a big contingency fund. After that’s complete, it’s time to build wealth rapidly and reach the F-U money stage in about a dozen years – perhaps retire early. I think that this is a very cool idea, though… perhaps after saving an emergency fund, I’ll save an opportunity fund and THEN begin to finance my massive goal of a lot of wealth to do whatever I want with (again, probably retire at 35). Thank you for this neato idea

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Sat, 10 May 2008 18:15:08 +0000

Just read this post, literally two minutes ago.
Logged onto my ING account.
Created an Opportunity Fund with the interest accrued from my Emergency Fund. Painless.

By: Bella

Bella — Thu, 08 May 2008 04:03:33 +0000

A friend of mind set up a fund called “Surprise fund”. Interestingly, my idea was a fund for positive surprises whereas in her mind, it was more “negative surprises”. Anyway, I find that Surprise fund, in the positive way, is a great way to call the opportunity fund

By: Sacha Chua

Sacha Chua — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:36:41 +0000

I’m building up a nice little opportunity fund separate from my retirement savings and my emergency fund. I call it my crazy idea kitty. I regularly save around 40% of my paycheck in this crazy idea kitty, and I dip into it for opportunities that come up. Anything I get from opportunities goes back into the fund. =) It’s great stuff!

By: budgets are sexy

budgets are sexy — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:38:28 +0000

Very interesting Idea – I’m digging it. While our Emergency Fund isn’t topped up as yet, I’m liking the words of Trent and Tyler in having “extra” in there to use as wished.

I’ll just keep our true EF at an even number (like $10,000) so I know all extra can be used for opportunities and such. That’s what i call sexy!

By: Will

Will — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:35:32 +0000

This is an excellent idea! I for one couldn’t use part of an emergency fund (like Trent does) because I don’t think I’d have the discipline to replenish it: once I start dipping into it for investments, then it’s a wrap, I won’t see it as an emergency fund any more, but as a potential source for investments!

For me, keeping things separate would be best

By: Tyler

Tyler — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:57:14 +0000

I am in the same boat as Trent.
I have a large-ish emergency fund that I use for opportunities (such as the two condos that I purchased this year).
I also have about 60% equity in my home that I have a revolving line of credit on so that I can make “cash” purchases of real estate and other assets when the right deal comes along.
I’ve been meaning to write about these on my site, maybe this will actually kick-start me to get these written down.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:22:51 +0000

I like the disciplined approach. It occurs to me that reverse money migration is free to occur. Should you find yourself in a Financial Emergency, you could take this Opportunity to have deeper bench for the Emergency Fund.

By: Lucian's Mommy

Lucian's Mommy — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:49:57 +0000

Wow what a great idea! I am bad about making spur of the moment (and usually bad) decisions. I already have an emergency fund in progress and I can’t wait to start saving for an opportunity fund next. It’s good to have goals and something to push forward for. Thanks for the post!

By: GBlogger

GBlogger — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:38:32 +0000

Loved this post! Yes, we have opportunity funds, to which we separately contribute. Sometimes we have something specific in mind, such as when we were building up a bit of cash to buy a (modest) investment property. Sometimes we don’t have anything specific in mind or are waiting for the Blueprint hedge fund to open (and hope we will have enough to be let in…)

We generally keep these funds in high-yield savings accounts, though the yields are not so high right now.

By: Trent Hamm

Trent Hamm — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:25:58 +0000

We use our emergency fund for this stuff – we pull out cash and just replenish the emergency fund. Because our emergency fund is pretty big compared to “normal,” this doesn’t worry us a bit.