People often talk about having emergency funds; in fact I would say that the idea is one of the cornerstones of modern day personal finance. And I will admit, I have a set of funds designated solely to true emergencies. However, I’m starting to think that I seriously need a fund, that consists of perhaps a few hundred dollars, that is there when I have an accident or mistake and I want to replace something but it isn’t really an emergency. The idea is that it would be used for unexpected, non-emergency situations that represent a personal inconvenience. Here are two real examples of things that would be covered with the Oops Fund.

  • Last month I did a triathlon and somewhere in between the car and my house I misplaced my sports bra. I have no idea how this happened (especially since it is the only yellow piece of clothing that I currently own). I certainly didn’t mean to lose it, but I guess in the excitement of the day it fell out of a bag or something. So now I’m short one sports bra that wouldn’t have needed to be replaced for a couple more months or so, definitely a candidate for the Oops Fund.
  • Remember last week when I talked about my fabulous fifty-cent bike. Well, unbeknownst to me the key to my bike-lock key fell off of my key ring. Of course I only discovered this after I had already locked my bike outside of the library. Yeah, oops. So I had to cut the lock off, but I can’t really ride my bike anywhere until I get a new lock.

If these were just isolated incidents, I would say that the money could come out of my pocket money. But since these are just a few examples of the silly things that I’ve done in the past month alone, I think that there might be a need for some sort of revolving fund. How about you, could you see a need in your life for an Oops Fund?