Hey ya'll, I wanted to share what doesn't feel like a win but I guess is a win. The last couple of months has been frustrating trying to pay off my remaining Care Credit balance while also putting money into sinking funds and an emergency fund. I forget how long ago this was but I was listening to Budget Nerds and Ernie was talking about holding onto cash instead of paying off credit card debt (in this context they were talking about how accruing credit card interest isn't that big of a deal, which I completely disagree with). But I thought this sounded like a great idea for low interest debt and in my particular circumstance 0% interest until November 2026. Quick backstory; I've been on the credit card float for years. Paying off debt, accruing debt, paying off debt, and so on. I also didn't know how to budget properly which was a big part of the problem. Anyway, my cat ended up getting really sick in April and my $1k emergency fund wasn't nearly enough to cover his bills. I ended up having to increase the credit line on my care credit to fund his vet bills (get pet insurance, ya'll) which ended up being close to $6k. He was very young and I hoped he'd bounce back because of his youth, but unfortunately he ended up passing in June. Anyway, I shopped around for different budgeting tools and decided to stick with YNAB, and it's helped me a lot. I paid off what remaining high interest credit card debt I had (it was like $1k or so if I remember right) and aggressively made payments on my care credit debt, while also contributing to sinking funds and an overall emergency fund. So to this point my care credit balance is at $1900. Once I listened to that episode I created a "holding" category to pay off that debt. Now since the beginning of September, life has been happening. First my garage door broke, then I had a crown that had to be redone. Then my Jeep needed repairs. (this was all within a week btw). I had to get my throttle body replaced along with some other work at the dealership, which ended up costing around $2k. For the first time I was able to pay off the whole thing using the sinking funds for car repairs, but because that still wasn't a big pile yet I had to dip into my emergency fund as well. A month and a half later I'm caught up in those two categories and then I've saved up around $1k for my care credit holding fund. Welp, now my Jeep needs new brakes, rotors, calipers, and a bunch of other stuff which comes to $2500. I've been getting these repairs done at the dealership, but if it ends up needing more work done (please god, no) I think I'll need to go someplace cheaper. I know jeeps don't have the best reputation, but with layoffs happening and the economy not doing so well, taking on a bigger car payment would be a bigger risk than fixing it. This is also the first time in 5 years I've to make any major repairs on it. Knock on wood I don't have more anytime soon... Anyway, because I held onto the money I planned on putting toward my care credit balance, I now have an extra $1k that I can put toward repairs instead of dipping further into my emergency fund. It's still frustrating that I could've had my care credit paid off if not for all this crap that keeps happening. Maybe there's something I'm doing wrong or I could be doing better. But I suppose this is why you build an emergency fund. Tldr; i used to suck at budgeting but i've gotten better at it since getting ynab. shit keeps happening the past couple of months, but instead of continuing to put payments toward a 0% interest until nov 2026 credit card, i held onto what i would've put toward it, and it made it easier to manage emergencies that keep happening.