Bitcoin Forum

Hi…

So basically the reason for this topic is, lately I have been seeing a lot of misunderstanding between discretionary income and emergency funds, especially in conversations around Bitcoin investing. Many of us tend to mix them up or treat them like they are the same thing. So I just felt the need to open this up, but jst to enlighten and highlight the difference and why it really matters when it comes to building our Bitcoin portfolio..

Please…
Let’s all share our thoughts and opinions on this. I believe we will all learn something useful here.

So first, what is Discretionary Income?
This is the money that is left after you have paid for all your important life responsibilities, rent, food, bills, transport, savings, and so on. It’s not tied to survival or emergencies. It’s the money you can actually decide what to do with, whether to invest, spend, or save extra.
Since the money is not tied to keeping a roof over your head, feeding yourself or your family, or paying the bills that keep the lights on. It is extra and that makes all the difference.

Why is this so important when it comes to Bitcoin investing? The fact that Bitcoin is known for its price swings and unpredictability in the short term. When you invest with your discretionary income, you are putting money in that you can afford to have tied up or even lose (but you won't) without it negatively impacting your daily living.

If the market drops for instant, you don’t have to panic sell because your rent is due next week or because you need money for food. Your essentials are already covered, that money was never on the line to begin with. This freedom gives you a huge psychological advantage... The ability to stay calm, think clearly, and hold your Bitcoin for long without unnecessary stress..

Now, what is an Emergency Fund?
An emergency fund is money you set aside and don’t touch except when something unexpected happens in life. It is there to catch you when things go wrong and you need cash fast. Life can surprise us with things like sudden illnesses, losing a job, urgent car repairs, or family emergencies that require money you did not plan for. That is when your emergency fund comes in...

This money is not for buying Bitcoin and definitely not for jumping into buying bitcoin just because bitcoin dump a little and “now is the time to go aggressive”....  If you spend your emergency fund on bitcoin investments or other investments, you could find yourself in trouble when real problems show up. Life does not send you a warning before things go wrong, bills pile up, car breaks down, or health issues happen without notice.

Your emergency fund should be easy to access, usually kept in a simple savings account, so you can get to it quickly without losing value. People often say it is good to have enough money saved to cover at least three months of your basic living costs.. This way, if your income stops for a while or you have a big unexpected expense, you won’t panic about where the money will come from.

Having an emergency fund gives you peace of mind. It means you are prepared for life surprises without having to borrow money or sell your bitcoin investments at the wrong time.

Why the Difference Really Matters
The big issue is, when people don’t separate these two, they make emotional decisions. Someone might use their emergency funds to buy the dip, and then when life hits, they are forced to sell which is not in line with their DCA plan or go into panic mode. That is how stress enters.

But when you invest with only discretionary income, it is different. You are building your Bitcoin stack gradually and peacefully. You are not under pressure to pull out when things go down, because that money was not tied to anything urgent in the first place.

For example:
Let’s say you earn $2,500/month. After handling your rent, bills, transport, savings, groceries, and other basic expenses, you have around $500 left over. That $500 is your discretionary income. You can decide to invest it in Bitcoin according to your investment plan, buy books, enjoy a night out, it’s totally up to you.

Now, let’s say you also have $2,000 saved in a separate account strictly for emergencies, like medical bills, job loss, or unexpected expenses. That money is your emergency fund, and it should never be touched for Bitcoin investments or any other form of investment..

The moment you start mixing the two, you are maybe setting yourself up. You could hurt both your finances and your peace of mind..

That is why keeping these two funds separate is one of the smartest things you can do as a Bitcoin investor.


I would really love to hear what y’ll think about this, do you separate your funds like this? Have you ever made the mistake of using your emergency savings to invest in Bitcoin? Let us learn from each other. Drop your thoughts.

‎This is honestly one of the most important breakdowns I’ve seen in a while. Too many people blur the line between discretionary income and emergency funds and it is dangerous, especially in volatile markets like Bitcoin.
‎
‎Discretionary income is meant for calculated risks and long term plays like BTC. Emergency funds? That i s your financial seatbelt and it is meant to keep you secure when life gets messy, not something you throw into the charts because there is a dip.......
‎
‎Mixing the two doesn’t just risk your portfolio, it messes with your mental stability too......Once you invest your lifeline, every dip becomes a crisis instead of an opportunity. I hope everyone including me, should really take this mindset seriously if they want to stay in the game long term......

Yeah true yixichloro2xx, and lot of us don’t get it.. once you mix them up, every market dip feels like a personal emergency. You stop thinking straight. You panic, you stress, and you make dumb moves just trying to protect money that should never have been in at the beginning..

We need to understand this if we really want to be a better Bitcoin Investor...

This is a long text however I enjoy reading it. I have not made the mistake of using emergency funds so invest in Bitcoin. This is because you are supposed to only use the money that you cannot afford to lose the invest in Bitcoin and that is the most safest option. Emergency fund should be used for that purpose. Using a discretionary fund in cases of wanting to buy the dip quickly is what I would advice.

Honestly anyone investing in bitcoin should know this and also separate their money into different category.
Managing to survive in the market volatility is a lot easier when you got money stashed for your emergency situation, so you won't be those kind of people who panic sell and become a paper hand.

This is exactly what I did when there were many dips before the big rally comes in, since I stashed money for emergency fund I can just ignore the dip or buy it even, and then move on.
As a result, I still hold my BTC all the way until now and will still be holding it for years.

Not agree at all. Bitcoin may go down, but if you keep some cash on the side just for emergency, then you are not really utilizing that money at all.

The best method is put all your money into bitcoin, and yes if something bad happens you are going to lose a lot of money by selling your bitcoin when it is down. However, if you keep on thinking the bad side, you are not going to make any profit at all.

The best way to move forward would be making sure that we are betting our money into bitcoin going up.

So for example, if you held some money on the side for the past 1 year, you would have lost a lot of profit chances. The best way is to keep all of it in bitcoin, but be smart about it, do not buy all of it when it is all time high, consider buying when there is a big crash.

‎
‎‎That is a bold take, and I respect the conviction, but full exposure without any safety net can backfire for most people. Not everyone can emotionally or financially handle selling BTC at a loss in a crisis. Holding some emergency cash isn’t about fear but it is about being able to stay in the game long term without being forced out.
‎
‎Yes, timing dips is ideal, but it is  hard to predict consistently. A balanced approach, majority in BTC, but some liquidity for life’s unpredictables,helps you avoid panic sells and ride the upside longer. Betting on Bitcoin's future doesn’t mean ignoring risk but it means managing it wisely.....
‎
‎‎I get your point, and yes going all in, can amplify gains during a bull run, but it also exposes you to unnecessary risk. Holding emergency cash isn't about being negative, it's about being prepared. Imagine losing your job or facing a health issue during a bear market if all your money is in Bitcoin, you might be forced to sell at a loss. That’s not strategy,that’s desperation.
‎
‎Smart investing isn’t just about chasing profits, it is  about staying in the game long enough to realize them. Keeping some cash on the side actually protects your Bitcoin stack, because it gives you the freedom to hold through dips instead of panic selling.
‎
‎So yes bet on Bitcoin’s future, but bet wisely. Risk management is part of the strategy.
‎
‎
‎

Exactly man. I think what really stands out is the discipline, not many people can resist the urge to dip into their emergency funds when the market starts flashing buy.

I think a lot of people know the difference deep down, but in the moment, emotions take over. It’s why these conversations matter just to remind ourselves of the bigger picture and stay grounded.

Appreciate you sharing your view.

I totally agree with you on this, Emergency funds are meant not to be touched but rather they are meant to foot the bills of unforseen circumstances. But for discretionary income one can decide on what to use it for, either for savings or what a view.but then most investors don't understand this principles and get it twisted so your point clearly state one save what remains out of paying their responsibility bills.

I disagree on the emergency funds piece but also agree too. Ahhh a conundrum what do I mean lol. It comes down to the maturity of your emergency fund.

I agree 100% with you based on early maturity of your emergency fund covering your life expenses for 3months(minimum) It should just cover your basic needs for that time period. It shouldn’t be used for bitcoin investments.

Where I disagree, again relates back to maturity. Over time you may increase your emergency fund for example extending it to 6,9,12,18 months of $ saved, at some points in the future. When you have maturity in your emergency fund you can start to figure out basic to comparative living $ needs. It happens naturally and you might account for other expenses above basic living coverage. So I absolutely disagree that you can’t use your emergency fund for buying bitcoin( like dca amount) in sense that if you account for it as something over basic living coverage and have that maturity in your funds. Personally I only started to think about extra over basic living things once my emergency fund reached 6 months.

As an example say you have 18 month coverage in your funds. Now you got a decision to make if say you lost your job. Do you do basic living for 24months or comparative living for 18months(with a btc dca).

Great write up by the way thanks for sharing, I enjoyed reading it!

We really have to plan our investments well, the most important thing is indeed managing finances first. So we can find out the amount we will invest regularly, as well as emergency funds.
The mistake of investors who are just starting to buy Bitcoin is to consider it as savings. So, put all the remaining money to invest in Bitcoin. If finances do not pose problems, as long as the needs are covered. But when you have problems related to something emergency, especially if you don't have insurance. The choice is to sell some Bitcoin to meet the needs. This is what hinders the success of investment in reaching the target.
But still, some people may not mind that. But actually, it is important to pay attention to.

Emergency funds should be used in unexpected times so don't use them for anything other than emergencies, at least that's our principle on how to handle emergency funds.

Discretionary income is up to the individual what they do, so it is better to invest in bitcoi so that it can grow even more or divide discretionary funds with investments + your wishes are up to them, but I myself am more into investing because it is better for the long term.

You highlight one of the problems with OP's write-up, even though it can be helpful to think through the various categories of funds (including discretionary funds, emergency funds, back up funds and other categories of funds, such as reserves and float), yet in the end people will call their various categories of funds different things - and there will likely be some back and forth movements and even blending between kinds of funds without necessarily knowing the names of the funds, or not giving consideration to how they are stored and/or what purposes the various funds might serve - including that if certain back up funds are built to a certain level (or even depleted to a certain level) then it could trigger actions from the saver/investor and/or behaviors to move funds from one location to another, to spend more in one category of funds or another category, to refrain from spending in one category of funds or another or to figure out ways to make more money (to increase discretionary income by increasing income and/or cutting expenses).

If we might say that all forms of back up funds are build from discretionary funds, then we might consider that these back up funds might fall into three categories of emergency funds, reserve funds and floating cash.   

The income that comes in on a regular basis will be used to cover various basic expenses first and even some folks have some of their discretionary expenses counting as basic expenses, then once the basic expenses are covered then what is left would be discretionary income which can be used for discretionary spending, consumption, investing or put on the side to add to various back up funds whether to emergency funds or to reserve funds. 

I personally consider the float funds to be money that has come in as income but might be held in a bit of limbo until the monthly expenses are determined, and once the expenses are figured out then if there is extra money in the float, then that extra money would convert into discretionary funds.. which means it could be spent for consumption, used for investment or put into the back up funds, into emergency funds and/or into reserve funds.

If we suggest that we want to get our emergency funds to reach a level of being at least 3 months of our expenses because we are trying to protect our bitcoin investment, yet if we do not have any bitcoin investment, then there is nothing to protect, yet if someone is brand new to investing into bitcoin, then he might already have a practice of keeping 2 to 6 weeks of cash for expenses or to cover any unexpected needs for cash, so he may have already inadvertently been in the practice of keeping emergency funds, yet he might not have had been considering his extra money as emergency funds but instead more like reserve funds that have more flexibility in their abilities to be used for various categories of extra expenses that might come up. Of course, not everyone has good cashflow management and/or abilities to hold some money in reserves, even though many folks will engage in holding 2-6 seeks of expenses in some form of reserve without necessarily realizing that is what they are doing.

Maybe ways of thinking about cashflow management are motivated to change for guys once they come into bitcoin, since they will suddenly have a motive to both protect their bitcoin but also to begin to build their bitcoin stash... yet it would likely not be practical or even a good idea to build the emergency funds up to 3 months of expenses without having some bitcoin, so then that would likely justify building up the bitcoin stash and the emergency funds simultaneously, yet there still would be discretion regarding how fast to build up the various back up funds (including that there still might be some needs for the back up funds to be flexible in their ability to be used while they are being built up) versus the building up of the bitcoin stash, which also has some priority to build up and have some bitcoin - rather than having a bunch of cash building up and no bitcoin to protect... so then the building up of the bitcoin and/or the emergency funds come from discretionary funds - unless a person might come to bitcoin and already have other investments or considerable amounts of savings (or reserve funds), so there could be some abilities to front load into bitcoin from their other resources, that had presumptively been built up from their discretionary income or as a result of past earnings and/or past gifts (which when received is similar to discretionary income to the extent that past gifts might be converted into cash or chosen to keep in their original gift form until later being used or converted into other form).  So, of course, funds/assets can be moved around to the extent that they had already been built up.

The various building up of funds or even the self-imposed restrictions of funds is going to have some variability, even though a guy might be aiming to get his emergency funds at least to 3 months of expenses, and if he gets his emergency funds up to at least that 3-months level then maybe excess back up funds beyond 3 months would be considered as reserve funds rather than emergency funds since they have more flexibility, yet surely as I already mentioned, if there is less than 3 months of back up funds and they are still being built up to a higher level, then there maybe be some needs to be flexible in regards to how funds might be used as those funds are being built up, and sometimes it can take a guy quite a long time to get his back up funds to at least three months.. It could take a year or two or more depending on how much money he has and is putting into such funds..

A new guy to bitcoin may well also be putting money into bitcoin while he is building up various back up funds, and then sometimes maybe needing money that he might want to draw from his back up funds as he is building up both his back up funds and his bitcoin, so if push comes to shove, it is better for newbies to spend from their emergency funds/back up funds rather than spending from their bitcoin, yet if he depletes some of his back up funds because he does not have any more money, he might be forced into building his those back up funds rather than buying more bitcoin, which surely can be dilemmas that can slow guys down in their bitcoin stacking and/or their making sure that they have enough back up funds.  Guys might want to be able to accomplish both the building up of the bitcoin investment and the maintenance of a sufficiently large enough back up funds  (emergency funds).. but they are limited.. and maybe if they are taking 10% of their income to build their back up funds and their bitcoin and then spending from the back up funds from time to time, it could end up taking them a year or two or more to get their back up funds and their bitcoin investment to be three months or more of their expenses.

Maybe the solution to try to build up faster is to increase their discretionary income by increasing income and/or cutting expenses, yet guys still might not be in a great position (situation) to increase their discretionary income...so they are ongoingly stuck with a dilemma to both build up their bitcoin stack size and to build up their back up funds and to not get into a situation where they end up having an emergency and they failed/refused to maintaining enough back up funds and end up having to dip into their bitcoin at a time that is not of their own choosing.

By the way, your point about "Over time you may increase your emergency fund for example extending it to 6,9,12,18 months of $ saved" which also highlights a bit of a dilemma, since we do not tend to want to have a lot of cash, since it is ongoingly debasing in value so it can be hard to maintain, yet as our bitcoin holdings get larger and larger, there could be reasons to offset some of our bitcoin holdings with cash that goes beyond the emergency funds, so then there could be 3 months of emergency funds and 3 months of reserves which adds up to 6 months, but then at that point there might be some desires to have extra cash to be working or otherwise invested, yet at the same time considering how liquid it is (how long will it take to get at it.. a few days, a few weeks and is it changing in value differently from bitcoin or similar to cash?), there can be dilemmas about ways to buttress and to offset the amount of bitcoin that we have, even though for the very beginner investor into bitcoin, he is likely going to be initially considering how to get his both his emergency funds and his bitcoin at least up to 3 months of expenses value each, yet even calculating how much is in the emergency funds versus how much has been put into bitcoin can result in quite disparate valuations, since bitcoin volatility can cause the dollar (fiat) values to be quite varied from one another, even if the guy might have put around 3 months of dollar value into the bitcoin, it could be valued way more or way less based on changes in the bitcoin price during the time of putting the value into it.


Many people (newbies and poor people) make the mistake of using their bitcoin as their emergency funds without necessarily realizing that is what they are doing... so they end up getting themselves in a pickle, and like you suggested, they might not even consider their having had sold to be a BIG deal as long as they were forced out of some or all of their bitcoin and they happen to be "in profits," which still they are likely failing/refusing to recognize/appreciate the importance of holding and building up their bitcoin stash for the long term in spite of their bitcoin stash sometimes being in profits.. and if they are frequently selling amounts of their bitcoin merely because their coins are "in profits" they likely will never end up making much if any progress in building larger levels of wealth.. which is a product of longer term compounding rather than various smaller levels of profits.. that might seem great, but in the end, they are taking away from their bitcoin holdings/profits to compound upon themselves.. because they are prematurely and frequently withdrawing in the name of supposed "profits"..


For readability, I fixed your quotes.  You had placed an extra:  "quote author=Greyhats link=topic=5550789.msg65603437#msg65603437 date=1753019463]" in the top of your response post.

Oh okay, thanks a lot.. Just noticed…

If I looking back at myself when the first time I buy Bitcoin, there was no emergency funds, I use my discretionary income to invest in Bitcoin.

The good thing it went well and I don't have to stress myself if the market were down.

Not want to say the new generations should follow my way too, of course, I, as someone who've in this industry for 4 years know if emergency funds was important especially you born from poor parents or have no one who can back up your financial when something bad happen.

I agree. Both should be separated because there is a huge tendency that we will use the funds that are not for emergency if some bad times come.

So, it's important to allot and separate the budget from the both of it.

A few times before but that's fine on my end because if I'm going to use my emergency funds for investing. I've made sure that there's an upcoming money to me.

As long there is a healthy cash flow, I think that it's fine to do that and you know what you're up to.

First of all what is emergency funds? money that is set aside for urgent needs that may arise within your time of investment such that instead of taking money out from your investment to attend to an emergency need, you can just use the emergency fund to settle it. What is a discretionary income? money that is left over from your income after you have settled your primary primary needs. However, all these funds are very important and necessary when investing even a reserved fund is also included because those are the things that will give you a smooth investment without having to tamper with your hodlings.

BTW, OP you would have just made your topic simple and short instead of making it too voluminous which may be difficult for most people to read.

Just like the meaning of the word Emergency, only in necessary impromptu situations can the money be touched. A different reason why most people make mistakes is that they don't really know what emergency is all about. Aside having emergency funds kept, there should be extra side of discretionary income kept to foot minor bills that may not have come during calculating expenses.

Emergency funds can be consolidated, the heavier the funds the better effective against emergency that should warrant affecting your investment.

There's a vital point here just as you have said many find it's hard to know what emergency fund is, let me use the word unforseen circumstances, thing that one can't think off or expected after budget, as the emergency or unforseen circumstances don't happen at every give time and may happen when one don't expect it , it's very hard to be capture or quantify the certain amount for such unforseen to keep fund outside make it safe for relief if it happens. A good planner don't see any Mino issue to be unforseen where emergency fund could be spend because those Mino could even be cover by its budget, what many called emergency today is as a result of poor planning and inadequate budgeting .

I firmly believe that the practice of having emergency funds, which entails putting money aside for unforeseen costs, such as auto repairs, bills, or medical bills, in order to prevent debt accumulation, has been very beneficial. This strategy has assisted numerous investors in successfully managing their money in order to reach their long-term accumulation objective.

You can fix how the quote is shown in your actual post by editing your post which would mean removing one of the extra heandings of "quote author=Greyhats link=topic=5550789.msg65603437#msg65603437 date=1753019463]" in the top of your post.


Sometimes we get lucky, even if we unwittingly take chances in ways that we had not realized.

Why always assume the worst and lose gains because of it. You are saying two negative things needs to happen all at the same time.

First, the price of everything should fall, so we are in a bear market, AND then we are going to lose our job at the same time. Isn't that really weird that you want to lose possible gains for a back to back possible bad things?

I do not agree that it's being "prepared", it is being paranoid after a point. If you really want to, 10% of your portfolio could be USDT, and that way you could have some emergency fund.

But, I believe AT LEAST 10x of your emergency fund should be in BTCitcoin.

I am not saying go buy some shitcoin or memecoin, I am saying bitcoin itself, the big coin, the top dog, it is not going to crash and then you lose your job, that is way too low chance.

Of course, there's a level that you will build your emergency funds up to, you stop and take building up your bitcoin portfolio as your focus. If your emergency funds is already up to three months of your income, it's enough to take care of whatever unforeseen circumstances that can play out while you are investing and building your bitcoin portfolio.

Emergency might come or not, and it you use part of your emergency funds, you should refill it as soon as possible. Emergency funds should be in our local fiat currency for eash accessibility or you can leave it in USD, if the value of your local currency is a problem.

I think this comes from experience, social class, political/econonomic location. I wasn't even ten when I first saw my parents worrying about money, and this wasn't even close to what happened a decade later in the late 1990s when Asia was thrown into full-blown crisis. I was 17 when that happened. Saw what happened to those who didn't have savings, those who didn't have enough, and my own parents who prepared for the worst.

In societies where the support system is fully reliant on the nuclear family, and then on the extended, you are brought up to prepare for the worst not just for yourself but those within that system. There is no state welfare net to fall into.

So while I'm actually leaning towards your view, I say so having extracted myself from the situation, class and location of my birth. It is easier to take those risks for me, but I comprehend his viewpoint, it having been mine not too long ago.

It seems to me that each of us should be prepared for a variety of scenarios, even extreme scenarios and losing your job and the bitcoin price falling are not outrageous scenarios at all. 

Your suggestion that bitcoin is 10x of your emergency fund seems quite strange including that in the beginning of your bitcoin investing time, your emergency fund and your bitcoin investment might be similar in size.. and it could take a bit of time before your bitcoin investment is outgrowing the size of your emergency fund.  If you don't have enough emergency fund then you are more likely going to get stuck in a situation where you have to sell some or all of your bitcoin at a time that is not of your own choosing.

I will agree that the larger your bitcoin investment grows, then it is likely going to start to outpace your emergency fund, merely from the amount that you put into bitcoin, and not necessarily considering the amount bitcoin might appreciate from time to time.   I think that it is more healthy to consider emergency funds and even other back up funds, such as reserve funds, as a means to cover at least 3 months of expenses for emergency funds, yet surely the larger and larger your bitcoin holdings grow, the more you might want to have various kinds of back up funds that might also include some funds that are more liquid and less volatile.. like exactly in physical cash.. and then other funds that might be more volatile but earning some kind of a yield yet they still might be somewhat liquid (might take a week or so to convert to cash if needed) but maybe not overly volatile.. .. but yeah the more wealth that you have, then the more back ups you might want to have so that you are not totally dependent on the price of bitcoin, so your suggestion that your bitcoin is at least 10x the size of your emergency funds seems to be more of an advance stage of your bitcoin holdings and not likely to be very common during the earlier years of your bitcoin investment... but even thinking 3 months of emergency funds means that your bitcoin is at least 30 months of expenses... so that is surely a more later stage of a persons investment since it could take more than 10 years for a guy to get his bitcoin investment to be 30 months of his expenses, and that is assuming bitcoin appreciation in the process.. since the guy's contributions on their own are likely to take quite a bit more than 10 years to reach such levels and a guy might never end up investing the size of 30 months of his expenses into bitcoin..

You're right emergency funds and back up funds should be in our local fiat currency, just  as most people have been preaching about putting all our Money into Bitcoin. i know they might be doing this because of inflation which is also a good reason, but putting all our Money into Bitcoin is not a wise idea because when there is emergency definitely you will have to withdraw some portion of the Money regardless to the market condition this is why I feel that our emergency fund and back up funds should be save in fiat currency to avoid messing up with our bitcoin investment.

Is very important to able to differentiate between Emergency funds, reserve funds and discretionary.especially when you are into bitcoin investment. They all have their roles to play when comes to investing in bitcoin , emergency funds just like the name implies is to take care of emergency like unexpected expenses, so is not for accumulating or being aggressive whenever there’s a dip that’s where reserves funds comes in , which can literally help to buy the dip while keeping pace with your normal dca method, discretionary income which plays the role of money you can spare for investing, or money you can choose to save but as an bitcoin investor is best for accumulating.

I agree with you, because it is very important for all bitcoin investors, especially newbies investors to differentiate between discretionary income, emergency fund and backup fund so that they won't invest wrongly and end up selling their bitcoin investment at early stage of accumulation in lost. Both Discretionary income, emergency fund and backup have their own different role to play when it comes to bitcoin investment. Now let me break it down to my own best of knowledge, discretionary income is a leftover money after you must have settled your basic needs and expenses either for the week or for month depending on your cashflow, from that your discretionary income you set aside money that you will use to invest in bitcoin, less say your discretionary income is $100 you can decide to invest $50 or $60 in bitcoin and then allocate the rest of fund to your emergency fund and backup fund. Now less come down to emergency fund, emergency fund is that fund you will use in handling all the emergencies that may arise along the line,  less take note emergency fund is not to be invested in bitcoin it's only for handling emergencies, I know the thing that always push investors to invest wrongly in bitcoin is when dips occur in bitcoin, some guys will always want to take advantage of the dip no doubt, but not by using your emergency fund to take advantage of dips, because you are endangering your bitcoin investment if you invest your emergency and emergencies arise no emergency fund to handle those emergency. Now less come down to back up fund, backup fund can be use to handle emergencies too if you run out of emergency fund, backup fund is also a fund for buying the dips when they occur.

I get where you are coming from, and you are right, stacking sats consistently and having conviction in Bitcoin pays off long term. But risk management is not about assuming the worst, it’s about preparing for the possible, not just the probable. Life doesn’t always move in sync with the market.

The truth is, people do lose jobs during bear markets maybe when recessions hit, layoffs happen, unexpected expenses come up. It's not about being paranoid, it's about building resilience into your financial plan. A modest emergency fund doesn’t weaken your Bitcoin position, it actually strengthens it, because it allows you to hold through volatility instead of panic selling when life throws a curveball......Having 10% in USDT like you said can help, but for most people, even just 3–6 months of living expenses in local currency can be the difference between staying in the game and being forced out early.

I am fully bullish on Bitcoin long term. I just think betting big doesn’t mean betting blind.

Thats how it should be but tons of people do failed on doing so just because they've been that expecting too much about into their Bitcoin or crypto investment on which they've been even thinking that they can assure out profits at the time that they would be investing into it on which this is that a very wrong mentality. There are those who've been that too optimistic towards it on which it isnt bad but just like been mentioned or said that you should be allocating different funding when it comes to investing and never ever forget your emergency funds as well on which this isnt just that make use on emergencies literally but also you can make use of it when you are tending or trying out to make out some investment or business on which at the time that you would be needing up these funds then you wont be having any problems with this. There are just that those times that you do become that taking up such step just because you've been that thinking that this would be your last shot for you to make money or having some profits. On the time that the market do make out some correction or plunges then you would be that easily get panicked and this is why its recommended that you do know on what you are that doing at least so you wont be expecting up that much and easiyl moves on. It all matters about on how you would be having that management.

Nah bro I can’t agree with that at all. Honestly, what you are saying just sounds more like desperation than conviction. That is more of a trader mindset, trying to catch every move and squeeze profit out of every dip. But that is not what Bitcoin is about for me.

Saying we should BET all our money on Bitcoin going up is not it. We’re not meant to be gamblers here. The fact that we believe Bitcoin will outperform its ATH does not mean we should now start making reckless or unbalanced decisions.

You talk about missing profit if you hold emergency funds, but what about missing peace of mind? Emergencies will always come, and if you’re 100% exposed with no backup, you will end up selling at the worst possible time. That is not strategy man, pls don’t do that…


Yeah bro, this right here is the kind of mindset a lot of people skip and later regret. It is not just about buying Bitcoin, it’s also how you’re buying and preparing yourself for the ride. People always talk about HODL,but if your whole capital is exposed with no emergency backup, you are not really holding… you’re just hoping…..

TBH, there was a time I had to sell part of my bag just because of an emergency that caught me off guard, not because I did not believe in Bitcoin, but because I didn’t plan well. But now, I’ve started separating my funds too. Now even when things go red, I’m calm, sometimes I even smile and DCA small.

You have taken time to simplify this to a way that it will be very easy for anyone to understand. So many person do misunderstood this and they eventually exposed there assets to unanticipated risks. Emergency funds are meant for emergency and it will be wrong to tamper with it unless there is emergency. So it shouldn't be used for investing or any other purposes aside for emergency. I love the point you have made about using reserve funds for buying the dips whenever it occurs while still going on with your long term plan.
Discretionary income is also very important because it is what that is supposed to be invest in bitcoin, since bitcoin investment is not risk free so it will be  unwise to invest money that we cannot afford to lose into bitcoin.

If every investors apply this, I think people would no longer complain about high volatility and asking whether they should sell or not.

Many people are too obsessed when they have money which they don't use and they're also greedy, hence they're trying to maximize the profit they can make by investing as much as possible.

It might be possible for some people who can still able to perform under high pressure, but most people seems not able to do that.

Exactly. If every investor understands this process, the case of losses that occur daily as a result of panic sales and premature sales due to emergency situation would become a thing of the past. People get carried away when they feel the market has dipped to their desired price and they go ahead speaking for every possible source of funds to invest while aiming at making a maximum profit. Anyone who invest with emergency funds is not ready for long-term holding, he's just a Trader parading as a long-term investor.

Maintaining your DCA approach is subject to your Discretionary income availability while the safety of your accumulated bitcoin stash is subject to your Emergency funds availability.

I get ur point man, that he should be more positive about life and all which is good one, but it is not really about wanting those bad things to happen. It’s about managing risk and normal circumstances of life, even with the fact that staying positive is good, sometimes market can flip fast, and sometimes bad news does stack up. I believe what he is just trying to drive in is been prepared in case things go south, not saying they will for sure. It is more like having an umbrella in your bag just in case it rains, not because you’re hoping for rain or something…

I understand where you are coming from, but I think it is still smart to separate that from your emergency fund. For me, I would say once you’ve saved up at least 3-5 months worth of living expenses jst as Ruttoshi said earlier, that should be enough…. After that, then you could rather focus on stacking more BTC….

But the emergency fund itself should stay in something stable and not Bitcoin like you mentioned, for easy accessible, like local fiat or USD, because in a real emergency, you do not want to be stuck selling Bitcoin during a dip or something.. It’s not about fear, it is just about being prepared every though you’re still bullish long term….

Exactly, thats the point, we just have to be prepared, life is full of uncertainty and anything can happen…

True man, that is exactly why I always talk about separating emergency funds from what you invest. Once your safety net is in place, whatever is left becomes your real investing power. Most people panic because they are overexposed, not because Bitcoin is too volatile. If folks only used true discretionary income, they would handle the swings way better…  Thanks for sharing your thoughts though… .

Ya it's important you get started when you have your discretionary income available that's what is important first most persons was unable to invest into Bitcoin today because they feel that without an emergency fund that they can't get it right so on the process of sorting out an emergency fund some other things took them away from investing in bitcoin.
Emergency fund can come later that's after you have already started accumulating Bitcoin it's not also wrong to start if you also have an emergency fund at first but not have an emergency fund shouldn't stop us not to get started provided we have our discretionary income we can kick off.

you guys sound as if you are not sure if emergency or reserved fund should be in fiat or in bitcoin. well if you are not convince yet, every fund you set aside is in fiat, and this includes emergency fund and reserved. even the discretionary income that is left after all expenses is made is still in fiat. the only fund that is not in fiat is the one invested into bitcoin.

The Emergency funds should be readily accessible for use at any given time when needed, and at such its better it’s been kept where it can be readily accessible and available by the investor. Wherever you might chose to keep your emergency funds, but always make sure it is readily available to use whenever the need arises.

 Discretionary income is the amount of money that you have after you have already accounted for all your needed expenses.
Remember your personal expenses will come first when you have a good management cash flow, and whatever that is left after attending to those needs can divided into 60% and 40%,which you can now use the 60% for investment into bitcoin, while 20% will be used for emergency funds and the other remaining 20% will be used for other backup funds to maintain your investment also helps attend whatever needs arises once a while, but are not emergencies, because you are suppose to make preparation for them.

Emergency funds are funds that we try to build up to 3 months of your expenses (income) and only use for actual emergencies such as loss of income and/or increased expenses

Emergency fund is very important in our bitcoin investment but it doesn't mean that when you don't have it, you can't start your bitcoin investment, there are some investor who started there bitcoin investment without emergency fund but was later built up  along the line.

So not having emergency fund at the beginning of your bitcoin investment should not be the reason you will not invest in bitcoin.

Without your discretionary income and emergency income, it will be difficult for you to successfully invest in bitcoin.

surely people need to prioritize emergency and reserved fund including other backup fund within the the next 3 to 4 months before more force is now added to bitcoin investment. because if bitcoin is been prioritized more from the beginning instead of emergency then it will be a big problem down the road, especially when emergency or an unforeseen circumstances happens.

i also agree with you on this too, as long as our emergency and reserved fund is firstly given priority, then bitcoin should be more concentrated, as that will make our bitcoin holding outpace our emergency fund. and normally there is no how it is even possible for emergency fund to compete bitcoin investment when we know that our bitcoin HODLings are meant to last for a longer time without being sold or used for any purpose, but in the other hands emergency funds will surely be used for emergency cases and it will reduce while bitcoin will still be constantly invested on. this reason is why people need to foresee the important of emergency as a priority that will stand as a wage against selling bitcoin in the future. because if bitcoin is given more priority at first instead of emergency then when a serious emergency happens surely its fund will not be able to solve the problem but will include bitcoin investment to be satisfied.

People can do what they like, yet I think it is problematic to be holding onto too much cash unless you know of some specific reason that you are going to need it.

if you know an emergency is coming then it is not an emergency, even though you might need to keep some cash on hand.

Also even more problematic for poor people to be holding 3-4 months of cash and have hardly any bitcoin, which is part of the reason that so frequently as a ball park suggestion I consider that building the emergency funds and the bitcoin until they both reach 3 months as a ballpark idea.. ..

 and so there is a need to balance liquidity and volatility yet at the same time eaqch of us has to account for various circumstances in our lives related to our anticipated income and our anticipated expenses so that we have some decent ideas about how much discretionary funds we have on a regular basis and how much various back up funds that we need.. including accounting for how we hold them in terms of both liquidity and volatility.. and anyone holding more than 4 months in cash is likely losing value as fast as they can keep it up (especially if they do not have at least similar levels of bitcoin)... so they might not be keeping value if they are stacking cash rather than stacking bitcoin...

and yeah, each of us has to figure out those balances without overly preparing for emergencies that might not happen or to speculate that there is only one way to prepare for emergencies.. and really, sure none of us want to sell any bitcoin that is at a time that is not of our complete choosing, so we have to figure out the balances and the likelihood of various scenarios in which the expenses exceed the income for extended periods of time.

surely we might be saying almost the same thing but its my fault not to include building emergency fund and bitcoin together. but even as i said more priority should be given to emergency in the first 3 to 4 months does not mean that bitcoin will be left without being invested in those periods, NO. i surely mean that a higher percentage should be allocated on emergency and less on bitcoin till the end of those period before priority changes even though we dont pray or hope for emergency to happen.

I think that guys can choose for themselves how much to prioritize one versus the other.  Of course, keeping a few month in cash should be empowering, and many people might already come to bitcoin and they might already have a practice of keeping 2-6 weeks of cash, yet when they come to bitcoin, the amount of cash they keep might become more important since they are protecting themselves from dipping into their bitcoin, yet if they have no bitcoin, then what are they protecting themselves from.  I doubt that it is really that obvious that having back ups more than a couple of weeks (which might be their already existing practice) is any more urgent merely because an emergency could possibly happen... unless there is something special that is already known that is likely to cause loss of income and/or increases in expenses.

Let's say a person has an income of around $1,300 per month and expenses around $900.  They usuallyh keep between $4450 and $1,200 in cash as their usual practice, yet right now they have right around $600 in cash and they just got paid $1,300.  Why can't they put the whole $400 in bitcoin?  Why do they need to give priority to their back up funds.  And then let's say next month they have $400 in bitcoin and they have $600 in their back up funds.. and they get their $1,300.  .. So then they have an extra $400 again, why not put $300 into bitcoin and $100 into their back up funds?  Then at that point they have the same amount in each?.. so then the next month another $400 comes and then maybe they decide to put $200 into each and they have flexibility.. they can do what they want. 

They could even choose to grow the bitcoin faster and invest $300 into bitcoin and $100 into their back up funds, even though their back up funds are growing slower than their bitcoin and they are taking chances and running risks, yet it is their choice how to balance these matters, and if they screw up they are going to be the one to suffer the consequences, yet at least they consciously are paying attention to what they are doing and they are weighing the risks.

At some point some point down the road their back up funds may well reach $2,700, which is 3 months of their income, and they may choose to continue to grow it beyond three months, so then there would be emergency funds and reserves, and so maybe the emergency funds they try not to ever allow it to be tapped into.. but if they make a mistake and they run out of reserve funds to cover the mistake then they will have to tap into emergency funds, and sure they should give priority to refilling the emergency funds, but they can choose or not choose to build up their reserve funds too.. so then they could end up with 3 to 4 to 5 months worth of expenses, and if they have 5 months that is $4,500 which is a lot of cash for someone with such modest income, yet it may not be so much cash if they might have some specific reason that they have the extra cash... maybe they are saving up to buy a new cell phone that is going to cost $800?  There can be various reasons that they might keep  more than 4 months of back up funds.

I think the amount of backup funds and emergency funds a person aims at achieving also depends on some factors which could be personal or general. A married investor with a family of 6 would need more back up funds and emergency funds than another bitcoin investor with a family of 2, 3, 4 or even 5 and this needs completely varies from the requirements of a single bachelor who is investing in bitcoin. If this is closely practical, then there may not be a suitable measure as to the number of months to hold as backup funds and emergency funds. The cost of maintaining humans per head is hypothetically exponential as the figures increase which also broadens the factors affecting the usage of the reserve funds, the back up funds and emergency funds all takes a different pattern that may not be tracked adequately too. So I prefer a continuous accumulation of both back up funds and emergency funds alongside your bitcoin stash for at least 2 years based on your summation here, 3 to 4 months per head, for a family of 6 investor.

This illustration is nearly perfect for a bachelor but may not be practicable for an investor with a broader responsibility per head in humans based on family inclination. I think it's better to choose what works for each and every one and not following a general rule or practice so long as you are maintaining a continuous accumulation and it is not interfering with you daily support funds, moreso your reserve funds may be implicated but not involving your emergency funds nor your backup funds.

Yea sure, when we are okay with the amount of money in our emergency funds and back up funds, it won't be wrong improving your investment funds to be more aggressive while reducing the amount of money channelled into your emergency funds and back up funds.  This is a personal choice which generally, the safety of your bitcoin stash should come first at all time instead of focusing more in the amount of bitcoin you want to accumulate within a set period.

Tapping into the emergency funds for investment sake at any point in time should not even be an option especially among the newbies who still lack proper knowledge of stress management and financial intelligence. Tapping into the emergency funds to refill it later ( soon as possible) after exhausting your reserve funds and back up funds is also more wield as no one knows when nature would hit and hence you've exhausted your reserve funds and back up funds for investment purposes, tapping into the emergency funds would be a final bite. So in this case, aggressive buys could wait until the next payday when you could channel your reserve funds and back up funds too just to safeguard your emergency funds for the safety of your bitcoin stash. This does not mean that emergency is going to happen immediately you tap into your emergency funds but just to be on the safe side.

However, this is not wholesomely identical as everyone has the right to choose what to do with their money. Bitcoin investment is a personal choice of which every gain and losses is also personal. So being practical and unassuming would go a long way to assist in keeping our bitcoin safe. This is for the long-term Investors anyway.

I believe that, as humans we're meant to understand that emergencies would definitely occur just that we can't predict when it might likely happen, I mean the exact time of occurrence so all we can do is to prepare towards it, that's why, asides Bitcoin investment the Emergency funds is very important, having it intact is meant to be everyone's way of life since emergencies are unforseen events that we know might happen, don't know when but should be prepared for it.

 Instead of holding emergency funds in cash for about 3 to 4 months, I think it might be better to even hold it in a stable coin, I understand that one needs to be very prepared and sometimes it might even take longer before emergency situations occurs but then that doesn't mean we should allow our money lose it's value while trying to be prepared for the unforseen therefore it's still not bad if our emergency funds is held in bitcoin or a stable coin instead of holding it in cash for about 3 to 4 months.

Before diving into Bitcoin, I always set aside some money for an emergency fund, and it's been incredibly helpful and effective when I really need it. We never know what the future holds, when we might run out of money, and having an emergency fund can help us overcome any financial challenges we face.
And after diving into Bitcoin, my long-standing emergency fund plays a crucial role in my investments. I immediately set aside money for my emergency fund after prioritizing Bitcoin purchases upon receiving my paycheck and also prioritizing my basic needs. I always do both simultaneously, but the percentage allocated to my emergency fund is smaller than it is to Bitcoin. Everyone has their own strategy for how long or how many months it takes to build an emergency fund, and for me personally, as long as I can achieve both without sacrificing other needs, I think that's much better. I also plan to use my emergency fund for my child's needs, as he will start school in about a year, and I can use my emergency fund for future needs and beyond as much as possible without having to use Bitcoin prematurely.

Holy shit, you are going to have fun staying poor if you believe that you need to hold 2 years of cash for expenses  merely because you have a family of 6 persons in which you are responsible.

If you have a family of 6, then your expenses per month are already likely going to be higher than a single person, yet several of the costs are going to be shared, so with some costs you are not adding equal amounts for each extra person.

I will agree that you will likely have extra expenses and needs for greater emergency funds and reserve funds, yet it likely not going to be any where near the levels that you are calculating to change your minimal requirement for 3 months of emergency funds to 18 (6x) months of emergency funds.. that is completely ridiculous and out of touch with reality or logical.

In the end, each of us needs to choose how much to invest into bitcoin versus how much of various back up funds that we might keep based on our expenses and/or based on our expectations that we might experience shortages in our discretionary funds due to lessening of our income and/or increases in our expenses.


In the end, each of us can do whatever we like, even dumb shit.  Sure, many times we suggest that the more new that we are, the more disciplined that we need to be in regards to both building up our bitcoin stash, but also we need to be more disciplined in terms of getting our back up funds to an adequate level.  At the same time, a newbie could take 6 months to 2 years or even longer to get both his bitcoin stash and his back up funds to a reasonable place (such as 3 months of expenses or more in each), so sometimes in the process of building up the bitcoin stash and the emergency funds, there may be some tough choices and/or learning and/or even situations that might contribute towards needs to assess trade offs and choices about from which funds to spend first or which funds to build first.. so ongoing balances and getting used to not having as much cash to work with but trying to get both the bitcoin investment and the back up funds (cash) to a comfortable and ongoingly workable place that is tailored the person's 9 individual factors (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5376945.msg58719590#msg58719590).


Surely there could be dangers in which a persons should be aware about when he taps into some of his funds, and he might have to consider his options and urgency of any of the ways that he might choose to spend money, and he might end up making mistakes by being too aggressive or on the other hand, he could make mistakes by being too conservative.


Each person has to decide his level of aggressiveness for himself, and sure many times we recommend starting out more conservative and then work up his level of aggressiveness with both experience and/or with the making sure that back up funds are sufficient. So, yeah, if he makes some mistakes, he has to suffer the consequences of such mistakes, and sometimes newbies and/or poor people (folks who do not have very much discretionary income) might not know how to manage their cash very well so they have to go through some difficult decisions and hopefully for their own good not screwing up too badly in terms of how they strike their balances.


Sure. Some investors will not end up making sure that they are keeping their bitcoin safe and they might unrealistically end up using their bitcoin as their emergency funds due to lack of proper preparations and proper accounting and lack of proper balancing to make sure that they do not end up having to tap into their bitcoin at a time that is not completely of their own choosing.


You might be correct that some (or a lot) of the emergency fund might be kept in some way that is other than physical cash in our own currency, so it could be that we have 1.25 months of expenses in physical cash, 1.25 in some bank account, 1.25 in stable coin or dollars.. and/or some other balance in which soime of the funds are more accessible than others, and we should be attempting to account for how long it might take to get access to the money, how volatile it is and how secure it is within its given way of being held.  I would not proclaim to know the exact answers for each person, yet if some people presume that they know everything and then they end up keeping their money in a way that is not secure or accessible, then they are the ones who are going to have to suffer (and pay the consequences) if they screw it up and if they reach a balance that is not very well thought through.


Even though you seem to be calling all your back up funds emergency funds, there are likely some of the funds that you are treating as reserves, since if you know the use of the likely use of the funds and you consider the funds to have flexibility in the ways that they can be used, it is most likely that those flexible back up funds are reserve funds rather than emergency funds, even though they can also be used for emergencies, if needed.

Is emergency funds not different from the money we need to be servicing our daily  household needs which includes those of children? It could be that you project your emergency funds to meant to serve different purposes but that shouldn't be the case but for unforeseen situations that arises. Our emergency funds should be strictly for emergency purposes while we delineate from our salary other funds for daily upkeeps. When our emergency funds serves many purposes it's no more emergency funds as it rightly should be. In knowing how to carve out their differences we can succeed in growing our bitcoin investments without tampering it prematurely.

for me I can say, emergency funds should ideally be reserved strictly for unexpected situations like medical issues, sudden job loss, or urgent repairs. When they start blending into everyday household spending, their core purpose begins to lose meaning.

That said, I think the challenge for many people, especially those with tight or irregular incomes is managing those clear boundaries in real life. Sometimes the lines blur, not out of poor planning, but because of pressing needs at home. It is not always easy to separate emergency savings from daily upkeep when the latter constantly stretches every naira or dollar......But you are right, that  learning to clearly define what each fund is meant for helps us protect our long term goals, including Bitcoin investments. With some discipline and structure, even those working with small amounts can build that cushion while keeping their sats untouched for the future. It's all about developing those habits over time.

Let me digress to this very emergency fund using other area like construction industry they have emergency fund otherwise know as unforseen circumstances budget or bill during bill preparation, the purpose is to cover up any emergency that comes up outside the bill that will affect the project within the awarded period, correlating to Bitcoin investment and our savings in Bitcoin it is unwise to refer emergency fund with mere daily feeding or expenditure that can be captured in your bill, a good planner should be able to know certain parameters of what it's expenditure could runs per week, months and even cover it properly in it's budget but still make provisions for that which may come outside it's thinking box or budget as emergency fund or unforseen circumstances, in my opinion I can't agree a fact that money spend on  daily feeding and school fees are really emergency it can only be according to the degree to which it occurred but for me, is as a result of improper planing and budgeting. Emergency fund is purely unfortunately circumstances things one can't emerging because school fees, feeding are every day activities that one need cover with a good plan.

Emergency funds is not meant to server two purposes rather it is strictly for emergency just like the name suggests. using emergency funds to pay schools fees then it is no longer emergency funds since it has been used for  entirely different purpose that it is ought to. The main purpose for having emergency funds is for unforeseen contingency, nobody can predict what the future holds and as such there is need to set aside some amount of money that can be used to attend to this unexpected event if it occurs in the future. Your child school fees is not included in this category so using money set aside for emergency for this purpose is strictly wrong because when emergency occurs as it may you may be left with no funds to attend to it.

I don't know, maybe it's because I've known both concepts for a long time, but what the OP says seems so logical to me that I find it almost banal. It's like if you want to fry something, you have to add the oil or butter first, not after. It's true that when you start investing, if you don't have an emergency fund built up and good budgeting experience, you may be tempted to dip into your emergency fund to invest more from the outset. But over time, you learn that slow and steady wins the race.

Don't you think that really blows hot like you don't own a savings and all you just do is invest all of your discretionary income into uncertainty bitcoin market and not bothered about emergency needs knowing that bitcoin profitablity isn't coming soon neither are you even bothered to sell in the short term? well, some people are really lucky to make ease on the pressure of chasing their dreams. Especially that of finances knowing how challenging it's as an independent person.
I'm sure you made it successful due to leveraging on backup.
However, I believe nomatter how rich we're going to be in life, as wise as thought, as long as we are independent, there's always going to be need to be calculative with our discretionary incomes even while investing, it's important to always consider emergency funds as backup approach because when there's no one to lean on at your needy when your investment hasn't matured for harvest, then you'll have no choice than to panic and disrupts your investment goals. Even when we've got those solid backups, we'll still need that backup savings because those external backup could fail somedays. Life is inevitable and change is constant to humans and nature.

I don't think is necessary to tamper with your emergency funds to cover your child expenses that's is about to start school . Since you're aware that your child needs will be coming up in a year time,then it is no longer an emergency situation. Emergency Situations are unplanned events or an unexpected occurrence. So likewise the Use of Emergency funds,it should be seen as a safe  haven or safety nets where you can fall backs to when Real life Emergencies happens. However I think what you should be thinking of using to cover up your child future expenses is using your reserve and backup funds.i think your reserve and backup funds should be used to dealt with extra costs in regards to your child needs and not your Emergency funds.

Sure, emergency funds is very clearly different from money for everyday spending  and should not be mixed. How we handle our emergency funds really matters as it determines the success of our bitcoin journey. There's no smart way of spending your emergency funds because no one knows the exact time and emergency situation will arise. When such funds is not available, one is pushed into selling off the available bitcoin to save the situation. Bitcoin investment is not something you can handle carelessly because of it's safety and it's not like selling off your bitcoin stash during emergency funds is generally evil but the fact that you are not too sure of not running at loss during the emergency situation period makes it very irrelevant to not provide for your emergency funds that should not be tampered with.
Using your emergency funds to pay you child's school fees means there was an error during your financial planning and also represents poor financial management. Child's school fees is a basic responsibilities to anyone who has a child. Hence, making provision for their fees is not optional and this implies that as you receive your pay, you first set the money for their school fees aside before you can determine your discretionary income from where you also assign your emergency funds and investment funds (which you now invest in bitcoin). One  mistake in the cashflow management system could collapse the entire system by setting your bitcoin stash up for premature sales. This is why when you decide your discretionary income and DCA allocation, it is advisable to create a backup funds and then the emergency funds.

The backup funds is there because your prediction about price of your basic responsibilities could change and  you quickly fall back to your backup funds to compensate for the excesses and still not your emergency funds.

Your emergency funds is so special to the extent that it is best allowed in cash, fiats not even in any asset or exchange. Emergency situation has no time, it could come by the middle of the night and if you still want to sell one asset before attending to it, it may be too late. Every investor who has long-term holding in mind has to be very disciplined against any urge to spend the emergency funds. Some also play smart by investing the emergency funds in bitcoin which is also wrong. They intend it for aggressive buys therefore exposing their general bitcoin to premature sales.

Your emergency funds should be set up first before any other back up funds because your emergency funds is bigger than whatever amount that you intend to use as your reserve funds or float. This is because your emergency funds will be at least three months of your income and fo this reason, you are to put it as your priority after your bitcoin investment. It can take your more than one year or two to set up your emergency funds since your are building it simultaneously with your bitcoin investment.

Your reserve funds can come after you have built your bitcoin investment because the funds that you are using to build your emergency funds is whet you will channel into building your reserve funds. Emergency funds is to backup your bitcoin investment so that you don't sell it when an unforeseen circumstance play out.

Emergency funds for a more clear understanding can be for example when someone had an auto accident and as we all know that accident occurs unexpectedly because no one really plans or knows it will happen, but along the line it just occurred unexpectedly, and the person involved is being rushed to the hospital for an emergency treatment. Now, in this case, this is where your emergency funds comes to play. Instead of selling off your bitcoin holdings to pay for your emergency hospital bill which comes as a result of the auto accident, you can comfortably turn to your emergency funds to sort out the hospital bill. Someone can also fall ill at any point in time and the person can be rushed to the hospital for an emergency treatment and at such you will need some money to settle the bill, that money being used to pay for such treatment in the hospital is referred to as the emergency funds.

Sometimes, emergency can occur as a result of death or the lost of a loved one and we know there are some part of the world where a lot of money is being spent to conduct a funeral service or burial. This is also where your emergency funds comes to play.

Like you said, it is the dumbest idea, and one who does that must have no clue about "what is inflation?"

I would recommend 3-6 months of cash as maximum and anything beyond is just wasting the potential money making opportunity and one who doesn't want to take any risks can go with the gold that is most likely not going to fall no matter what and if they want something that's from government then bonds can be an option even though these all are no where near with the returns offered by bitcoin but just in case they want to be safe and no risk at all. But like the classic saying, 'No risk No reward' so good luck them stay stuck where they are currently.

And one thing I noticed with most users here or in general not to make use of the health insurance and that is likely going to be most emergency we can stumble on all of a sudden that can be tackled with right insurance package depends on our needs and life insurance in case of unfortunate events so the family can survive from the money for a while and think about their next plan in our absense.

Summary: Don't keep as cash that you will need for no more than 3 months, buy the health insurance, prepare the retirement plan as early as possible and start investing based on our risk tolerance.

TBH, Don Pedro Dinero, I feel you on this, for people who already understand how to handle money, it does sound like plain common sense. But in reality, I have noticed a lot of new Bitcoin investors still mix the two up, and that is where problems start fr... Guys still jump in excited to buy the dip without having a proper safety net, and it all looks fine until life throws a curveball, maybe the car breaks down, medical bills show up, or some urgent expense pops up, and they end up selling at the worst time...

That is why I think keeping discretionary income and emergency funds separate is not just about discipline, it is about peace of mind. You can hold your stack without worrying about where money will come from when something unexpected happens. Even if Bitcoin takes a sharp drop, you are not running around looking for quick cash or regretting your moves...  Like you said, slow and steady wins, i will add slow and steady only works if the steady part is not constantly under threat....

I think that part of my point was that if we have good systems and practices in place, every once in a while we might be able to take extra chances and even do some things that are not very smart, yet our strong systems will protect us as long as we are reasonable in the kinds of chances that we are taking, and we are not engaged in such risky behaviors on a regular and repeated basis.  

I think that many times if guys are in their earliest of stages of building up their various back up funds, they are going to likely be engaging in various risky behaviors from time to time, since they don't have enough back up funds to cover a wide variety of scenarios.. yet the more and more that they build their wealth, and even their bitcoin holdings, they have more and more cushion to cover a larger variety of scenarios including that they could end up in situations where they might have to sell 5% to 10% of their bitcoin holdings, yet if they have built up their various investments so well, then they would not even be majorly damaged even if they end up having to sell some portion of their bitcoin holdings.

Yet, if a guy is in his early stages of building up, he might not be able to afford such losses and if he ends up getting set back a lot, he might never be able to make up for his losses... and he also might never be able to get to fuck you status or maybe instead of getting to fuck you status in 15 years, he ends up not being able to get there until 25 years, and so he would have had a much better life to have had gotten to fuck you status earlier, but once he made certain mistakes, he ended up overly depleting his various investment stashes (including his bitcoin) and never completely being able to recover, but once he experiences certain levels of damage, he still has to pick up the pieces of whatever he has and he has to work from what he has rather than working from where he could have had been.. even though some folks will become psychologically damaged from some of their large losses in life..and some people will be better at picking up and salvaging the pieces from where-ever they are at as compared with others who might end up giving up..


I think that within the first year or two that a person is building up his various back up funds, he might have some overlap in the terms or even his usage of the funds, and surely there should be a priority to build up emergency funds first, but if a guy does not have any other money besides his emergency funds and his expenses happen to be more than his income, then he has no choice but to use the emergency funds.  Otherwise he would have to tap into his bitcoin since he does not have any other money.

Sure the guy is in a better position from having had built up the emergency funds, and maybe he had been investing in bitcoin for a year at 10% of his income, so his emergency funds and the amount that he put into bitcoin might ONLY be right around 1-2 months each of his expenses), so it is not as if he was doing anything wrong, it just takes a while to stack away money if the whole of the discretionary funds is ONLY 10% of his income.. and it is not even like he is poor because there are some folks who are not able to invest 10% of their income.. so he is doing what he can do, and if there is a shortage of income to cover his expenses, his only choice at that point in time is to tap into his emergency funds or to tap into his bitcoin... ..

Maybe in this scenario of a cash shortfall, the expense is 1-2 weeks of his expenses (which would be around 1/3 of the size of his current emergency fund stash) and it is going to set him back to tap into the emergency funds, but he does not have any other money..so maybe it does not even matter what the expenses are for except to know that he cannot defer paying for it.... and he better hope that the upcoming months he is able to either increase his income and/or decrease his expenses, and sure it can be difficult to talk about these matters in the abstract and sure we could make some more exact examples since sometimes there are abilities to quibble within the examples to say that the guy has abilities to increase his income or cut his expenses or to do other things, but at the same time, if the guy gets himself into a pickle in which his expenses are greater than his income, then even if it might not seem like an emergency and it seems that he could have had avoided it, he still ends up finding himself in such a situation which is more likely to happen in the first couple of years that he is building his various back up funds...and the early stages of his getting used to investing in bitcoin (maybe he had not had any prior experience investing, either).


Ultimately, there is likely no exact clear answer, yet guys have to figure out ways to strike a balance to cover a variety of scenarios, and the more likely some scenarios to happen, then the more that either funds have to be set aside or some other kind of provisional plans should be taken (such as your suggestion for insurance for various kinds of scenarios).   There also can be some scenarios that we are not going to be completely prepared for, yet those scenarios might also have relatively low chances of happening, so we have to figure out how to reach our balances with various base case scenarios, but then also further extreme scenarios may well also be sufficiently and/or adequately covered.

The more that we build our bitcoin up, maybe even if we get to a stage in which our bitcoin is 1-2 years of our expenses, we might realize that some of our worse case scenarios, our bitcoin is serving as part of our emergency fund, yet if we still have goals to build our bitcoin investment so that it is 10-15 years or more of our expenses, we figure out some balance in which we are in the practice of holding at least 3 months of emergency funds, yet we may also develop several other kinds of funds that might even be held in other assets, including that it may well be the case that we have built up credit so that if we really have a shortfall of cash, we can borrow 2-3 months of our expenses.. and that could be an extension of our back up funds that goes beyond the 3 months that we might have in more liquid form such as various forms of cash.

You're right there. The thing is if you've a solid backup background, the risks of investing without a thought that you're risking will be drastically minimized because every short eor emergency needs is sure to be handled without stress. I fear to call such scenario a smart move for the investor but moment to take chances from those opportunities with the potential of encouraging your dreams.
Although we don't need to play too over smart and looses the version of probability because a slide unusual from the backup system has a burden potential against that goal we're thriving to acquire in the less risky approach where we were not bothered if bitcoin was volatile nor there was risks associated to bag all our eggs in one basket.



I trust the right orientation is that we invest according to the values of our discretionary incomes and expands our values of even diversify when there has come increase of our incomes. The reality is that the more wealth we grow is the more expensive our budgets grows therefore we're expected to have more savings to solve those needs because we wouldn't have to put them all up to those behind our confidence.
Perhaps selling even a pinch of your asset isn't a good idea because you're otherwise deviating from your goal. If you must sell, let it be at the appropriate time you've set upon from the onset if not, there'll always be convinceable reasons to why you even have to sell all to solve your needs. I think we need apply some more disciplines and don't crave for expenses that's above our savings and not our future assets.
However, somedays are like that when we've to stumble with our finances especially when  we don't earn much and have a dream that's beyond what our presents can afford in the long term. So therefore, I also agree that there could be need to sell at times at the needy but that mindset of repeatedly tempering your investment values just for emergency purposes is a void that can't help reach the goal. Instead, if if expenses has become too much to handle and also buying more to your portfolio, then stop buying and just hodl. You can use further provisions of your discretionary incomes to curb those expenses regarded that you're not buying more in the meantime until you sort your expenses and budgets.

Indeed it is correct that everyone should clearly remember about a separate savings section as the emergency fund is like a financial safety net. Using an emergency fund for a child's needs doesn't seem like a complete healthy plan to me and this plan should be shut down immediately. In terminology it can be said that these things are basically part of your financial plan so it may be appropriate to use personal savings or other reserve savings to enter at that moment. In fact an emergency fund may not be created to cover such expenses, basically everyone tries to save that money to deal with unexpected and confusing financial pressures. It's true that if you don't want to use Bitcoin prematurely, so definitely need to find other options or alternatives but you probably shouldn't touch your emergency fund at all because these funds should be used properly based on risk tolerance and for unexpected moments.

As much as possible on which you should be that separating the two but we do know that there are some life situations on which we cant be able to avoid on spending up into those said allocations specially if the emergency fund isnt enough and you've been searching up on possible ways or solutions on trying to cope it up. Just like for example with some problems when it comes to health on which it is just that possibly a very costly kind of expense depending on how complicated it is. No matter how wealthy you are but if you do have that continous medication then you would definitely be facing up some issues when it comes to finances on which this would be leading into spending into the amount that you could possibly had even if you do have those plans on not to spend it no matter what, but if you are already on a life-death situation then you wont be that caring on with that. Even myself will definitely be that doing as long I could save up myself or my loved ones because thats what money is all about on which it should be spend.

Yes, we might be able to missed out those opportunities on making money but nothing beats out if you do save up someone or be able to save up your family or yourself just because of those funds.
It doesnt matter whether is a dicretionary income or emergency funds on which it isnt just that too hard to distinguish in about the two things on which you can eventually be able to point out directly on how
you would be that taking up such approach on different scenarions. Using up your own common sense will be telling you about its importance and what matter the most thing on here is that you do able to save up in between two things on which it will surely be having that benefits or could save up yourself on such situations.

Exactly, slow and steady is more important than trying to rush your investment to have big portfolio and this is what some folks do, they think going beyond there discretionary to invest in Bitcoin is the best way to go about it but it is absolutely the wrong way because our discretionary has to be used wisely and again some do this because they feel this investment is a competition, some are investing just to have more Bitcoin than there friends and..., not knowing or considering the fact that people has different source of income and people also have different capacity, what I can afford to invest in Bitcoin may not be what the next person can afford to invest because of our financial strength but some folks always don't consider this and soon they will be running and jumping, panicking because of ignorant.

While that is nice, don't you feel sad when you see bitcoin going up. Also I am always shocked to see that people have enough money to live, plus save aside for crypto investment, plus put aside some for emergency fund.

Right now, I can't buy bitcoin nor save aside at all, because I have huge amount of debt. Me and my wife started a business, and I work every single day, and we make very little money for the time, mainly because of the debt of starting the business. The good news is, even after just three months (not even fully three months yet) if we had zero debt, we could survive easily with the money we make. But because it took a ton of loans to open it up, I can't save even a dollar aside. I literally have 10 cents in my bank account lol.

Anyone investing in bitcoin using beyond his discretionary income is only gambling and will end up selling his bitcoin investment, if the price is below his entry point at that moment, he will run at loss. This is why we need to use only the amount of money that we can afford to use to keep our bitcoin accumulation ongoing from our discretionary income.

Life is not all about competition, neither is bitcoin investment too. If you are receiving the same income with your friend and want to be in competition with him on bitcoin accumulation, you might get it wrong because your expenses and his expenses wouldn't be the same, he might have less expenses than you do. Keeping up to consistency and ongoing accumulation without selling a dime is what matters a lot.

Before starting the business, did you do some kind of feasibility studies to see how viable the business is? In other words, before taking the loan to start the business, have you done your research to know if the business can pay back the loan within the tenure of the loan? If you did all these, I'm sure you would have made some adjustments that would have lighten the burden a little. New business require gestation period before profits should be expected and starting off with huge debt whore tenure have reached even when the business have not balanced is definitely something I will not support.

You can see from the ongoing discussion that it is recommended to invest in bitcoin with only part of discretionary income so that the investor will not be under any pressure to sell when he did not plan to. A further step is even made to provide additional security to the investment in the form of emergency funds which will take care of all spendings not planned for from the beginning but which may arise and need urgent attention.

A lot more concreteness will come regarding how to manage our bitcoin investment as we accumulate more bitcoin and we plug in our calculations regarding what to do based on how much we have and what are our various goals.

There are trade offs to any action, and even a poor person after a couple of cycles of stacking is going to be tempted to tap into his bitcoin and he is even going to be able to see the waves, so he may well anticipate that that the BTC price price will be going up and then it will be correcting, and even if he had ONLY been investing $10 per week, after a couple of cycles, he might be starting to get to several thousands of dollars invested into bitcoin and maybe he accumulated somewhere in the ballpark of 0.3 BTC and 0.4BTC, and also the value of his actual bitcoin holdings may well be around 10x the quantity of money that he put into bitcoin..

So his past ongoing and persistent investment into bitcoin had really been paying off and given him options that he did not previously have.  When he looks at his holdings (let's call it 0.35 BTC), he sees that based on spot price, his stash is valued around $41k, and valued at 200-WMA at close to $18,000 (https://bitcoindata.science/withdrawal-strategy?U2FsdGVkX1/Zvp05Sr+WvwIIMvZJHLEBqSfAU1etsfryybRfLNqKi4ye7SYCJYfDVWZJReqJF8Q+QyzRpy3lZA==).   From the 200-WMA, he can see that he could withdraw up to $1,800 per year, which would be 15x the amount of his historical weekly contributions of $10 per week, so he is feeling that his having had invested into bitcoin is putting him into a good place.  

Even though he feels that does not really have enough bitcoin to stop working, he might start to feel that his ongoing investment of $10 per week into bitcoin is not really adding much if any value to his BTC holdings as much as the value of his holdings are fluctuating just from ongoing BTC price moves.  So he is left with a bit of a dilemma in regards to his continuing to contribute, even though he might be convinced that he does not want to withdraw yet.  He might even consider that just continuing to hold that same quantity of bitcoin, after 4-ish years he might be able to more than triple his sustainable withdrawal rate, so he is still left with a bit of a dilemma in regards if he should continue to contribute $10 per week into bitcoin or to put that $10 per week into other matters and just wait another 4-ish years and consider that his withdrawal rate might be around $5,400 which would give him a weekly withdrawal rate of right around $100.

None of can really say when we are transitioning from accumulation stage to maintenance stage and then later to some form of sustainable withdrawal stage if he should keep investing in bitcoin, even though many of us might be inclined to tell our hypothetical guy to just keep buying $10 per week for another few more years, especially if he is considering that his timeline might be somewhere in the 4-ish years of investment timeline... yet for sure how to allocate our money are personal choices, and sometimes we can feel inconveniently locked into the scenario of the hypothetical since sometimes we might want to change some of the hypothetical circumstances.


Everyone is correct when they are saying that an expense related to a child's needs that maybe it is an extra $200 twice a year, and those kinds of expenses need to be prepared for and planned for in advance, and if you get to a place where the child's needs are needing to be paid, and all that you have is the emergency funds or the bitcoin, then you might have to make an uncomfortable choice, since you do not have any other funds from which to choose.. so you may well have had put yourself into such a situation in which you don't have enough money to pay for the child's expenses.  

Another thing is that sometimes other people might know that you have bitcoin, so then they create expenses and they know that you have the bitcoin to pay for such expenses. You might even do that to yourself.  You consider your bitcoin as a kind of back up fund,vso you do not sufficiently/adequately prepare other kinds of funds, which may end up contributing to your selling too much bitcoin too soon and/or selling bitcoin at a time that was not completely of your own choosing, and if you initially told yourself that your bitcoin investment timeline was 4-10 years or longer, and you were really emphasizing longer than 10 years, then you should not be running into situations that contribute towards your potentially being motivated to sell some of your bitcoin at a time that is prior to such 10 years plus timeline.

Anyone who uses his emergency funds for child's need do not really understand what the emergency funds was kept for. Child's need is a basic need that should be funded with the money for basic needs. Emergency fund is calculated from the discretionary income which is total income minus the funds for basic needs. When a worker, for instance, receive his salary, the first thing to do is to remove the money for basic needs such as food, utility and other basic things including children needs. After the basic needs have been settled, then the individual can go ahead and calculate what proportion of the balance can be invested into Bitcoin and what proportion can be set aside as emergency fund. I learnt this in the forum as it has been shared by many people in many of the threads like this one. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5132720.0)

Sometimes with debt there can be options regarding minimum payments and/or how long to take to pay it off, and surely since you have been registered on the forum for as long as me, you have had 11 years to figure out bitcoin and to figure out how to potentially prioritize bitcoin in your life.

Sometimes with investing into businesses, there can be ways to increase your income beyond what you might be able to earn in the long-run even though in the short-run there might be some building of the business.  Another thing is that you seem to have had chosen to enter into the business (or at least the loan?) only 3 months ago, so sure some of what you are describing is merely a temporary phase for you and your wife.  

I would have had thought that a person registered on the forum for more than 11 years would have had figured out bitcoin by now and maybe even would have had gotten through a lot of his BTC accumulation phase already, yet surely some folks might not recognize the value of bitcoin or they might not be in a situation in which they consider bitcoin investing to be a good thing for their actual circumstances.

Edit: Oh.. now.. I just looked at your forum profile, and it appears that you may have bought this account in late 2016 (perhaps October/November), yet still even getting involved in bitcoin in late 2016 could have still been good enough to get you with a decent bitcoin stash by now, yet you seemed to have had been spending your time and energies y so perhaps your timeline on the forum in the gambling sections, the shitcoin sections and the trading sections, so it can be difficult to focus on bitcoin if you don't know what the fuck bitcoin is and you are distracted by those tangential waste-of-time topics.    

Hmm… I feel like there is a bit of a contradiction here... You first mentioned how before diving into Bitcoin, you always set aside some money for an emergency fund, and that it is been incredibly helpful for financial challenges we can not predict, which honestly makes a lot of sense… But then later, you are also talking about using that same emergency fund for your child’s school expenses...

Now, school expenses are not exactly an unexpected emergency, they are more of a planned expense you can anticipate months in advance.. So if you start dipping into the emergency fund for planned costs like school expenses, then you might not have it when a real financial challenge comes knocking…. I am not saying your plan is bad sha, but maybe it would be better to keep the emergency fund strictly for true emergencies, and have a separate future needs fund for things like school expenses and all…

The tricky part about missing a chance to be super wealthy with bitcoin, is the fact that maybe we are late to put in 100 dollars and take out 1 million dollars, that is true. But that feeling shouldn't prevent us from getting the reality in check, because it means we are going to just end up with a lot worse if we are not careful, which is miss out on the current chance. Just because you missed your chance to make money back in the day, doesn't mean we should miss that chance today as well.

We need to do a better job, and keep investing, and do better now, so that we do not miss again. Yes you can't put small and get out huge now, but you can still make more than other investments, more than what gold would bring, or stocks would, or anything else.

It's very disappointing that someone who heard about Bitcoin and is actively participating in Bitcoin related activities but does not have single faith in Bitcoin to consider holding the smallest fraction of it. I have noticed this among some people that they still have not seen the opportunities in Bitcoin, the reason they have not even thought it wise to working on having a Bitcoin portfolio. It's a very terrible mistake that might hunt some people for a long time.

Instead of starting the business,  he would have been better off starting a Bitcoin portfolio with the little he and his wife had at that time and forget about borrowing. Since he is in signature campaign, that would have even supported them to consolidate on what they have already acquired and by today they wouldn't have had any reason to be in debt with nothing to fall back to. The money they had before taking the loan would have gotten them anywhere close to 1 BTC as at 2016 when Bitcoin was far lower than what it is today or maybe it may not be up to that quantity of Bitcoin but it would have been enough to get them started without debt.

I just hope that others will learn from their mistakes and take their finances seriously through investing in Bitcoin that have proven to be a reliable asset for investment.

It's okay to believe something harder in the reality can actually promtpt us to sell our assets abruptly of emergency purposes that may cut out dred short, since we've come to understand that this investment obstructions is caused by lack of diversification to back up other assets in case of need to take profits to solve our needs while not selling our major treasure bag on bitcoin, I'll advice we take earlier caution and begin maximizing our plans in the earlier stage so that nomatter what, even if we've to sell other assets, the treasure bag will always be intact. I agree that things happens beyond imagination as unexpected, and so now we know we can start laying the structures that on no account should we be left with zero or getting to the bottom just because we had to sell our bitcoin to solve that emergency need. We can actually prevent theses odds now we're aware and don't give excuse to when we gets in the relegation.

Back in 2020, I started buying Bitcoin with just $20  nothing big, but it was all I could spare at the time. It didn’t feel like much, but it was my way of at least having some skin in the game. So I understand how frustrating it can be when you want to invest but simply can’t because of life’s circumstances.....In your case, the debt is the main wall between you and saving or investing, and that is no small thing. Business loans can feel like a never ending weight, even when the business itself is doing fine. What makes it harder is seeing others with enough income to handle living expenses, stack sats, and still have an emergency fund , it is like they are  playing a different game entirely.

The positive thing here is that your business is already showing signs it could sustain you without the debt. That means this isn’t a hopeless grind but  it is more of a waiting game until the loans are out of the way. The fact that you are already making enough to survive easily in just three months is a big sign you are moving in the right direction.

I know it is  tough looking at Bitcoins price climbing while you are stuck paying down debt, but I can tell you that missing one cycle isn’t the end of the story. Your turn will come again. And when it does, even if it’s just starting small like I did with $20, you will. be ready to step back in without the weight of loans hanging over you.

I'm seriously motivated to congratulate you on having the motivation to start small without and build consistently. It is quite encouraging because not many people know that $20 invested in Bitcoin per week and done consistently, can be a life saver in the future. I'm am doing something like that at present and I believe I will have a wonderful testimony to tell ten years from today.

From his response, he has not even been convinced that Bitcoin could be the best investment opportunity he would have taken that was why he never invested in Bitcoin for close to a decade he has been in the business. What became more discouraging was the fact that the loan he took was not to invest in Bitcoin but in other business which means Bitcoin is completely out of the picture. It is such a bad example for those that are young in the business of Bitcoin but a good learning opportunity for all to see how much liberty we could enjoy if we take Bitcoin seriously and beyond mere words of mouth.

I would guess that when you have a child, there are unexpected expenses from a child as well. Meaning, like lets say there is a school trip, and takes a good chunk of money, that would still be unexpected. Doesn't mean they have to go, but it is still nice to give your kids that experience when they are young so it would shape them to be better later in life.

It's important to realize, kids are unexpected expense machines, not just even school, everything in their life is an unexpected expense and you end up with spending more than you calculate. Anyone who has a child can tell you 100% true that you can calculate at the start of the month how much everything costs and make a calculation, and then at the end of the month you realize you spent more than you calculated because of them.

I am not sure what the differnce between the expenses of children, spouses or even businesses.   There are going to always be ways in which our cashflows become more complicated whether we are referring to the income, the expenses or to both.

The safer way to budget would be to provide extra budget and perhaps including calling it float, so if you keep your float at a higher level then you have more likelihoods of capturing all of the expenses, and then perhaps having more money at the end of the month than you had expected rather than having less than what you expected.

It seems to me that the building and maintaining of strong cashflow management would attempt to error on the side of not getting caught with your pants down so you would rather have extra money at the end of the month rather than not enough.. and sure if the expenses become just way too difficult and sporadic because there are are several kids, a spouse and maybe one or two other members of the extended family on the support system... so then maybe there would be a practice of keeping an extra slush fund of $300 to $1k that is just for the unexpected family-related expenses purposes.  There also could be an approval problem, since maybe if you are the one who has to approve all expenses that are more than $50, or maybe your spouse is the person who makes the final approval.  I doubt that any family just gives a blank check to child expenses merely because the child is the greatest thing since sliced bread.  On the contrary it seems important to figure out reasonable limitations whether referring to kids, spouse and/or other family members.  Similar kinds of difficulties with income and/or expenses are likely to happen in relation to carrying out a business, and surely some businesses have more complicated/unreliable cashflows than others... yet each of us still would be attempting to bring into control and/or to put appropriate limits on certain expenses and even making sure that income is collected without allowing cash receivables to linger for long periods of time.

I get where you’re coming from because the reality is, once you have kids, even the most perfect budget can turn into a moving target. . You might set aside what you think is enough, but then a random thing comes up and suddenly you are adjusting, That is just part of the parenting game…

But, I think the main challenge is not about whether these expenses are real or not, they definitely are, but about how they are managed without disturbing the foundation. If every little unplanned cost ends up being pulled from the same pot meant for emergencies, then when a real financial crisis hits, you might find yourself empty handed…


I like the way you placed this with the idea of a float or slush fund. It is a much more disciplined way to handle unpredictable expenses without constantly blurring the lines between necessary safety reserves and day to day budget shocks..

U kw this principle applies beyond just family life, business owners, freelancers, or anyone with variable cashflow can benefit from this same system.

The big win with your approach is that it shifts the mindset from reacting to expenses towards anticipating them.. Having that extra cushion means you are not scrambling or making emotional money moves just to cover something unexpected. And in the long run, it is the habit of over preparing, even slightly that keeps your financial thing steady, whether you are dealing with kids, a spouse, or the occasional sector life throws your way.

The reality is simple if you really want to get a greater return of your "investment" when you have a kid, is to pour that into the kid itself. Sure leaving some money to them is great feeling if you can do that, or leaving real estate, or whatever networth really, like leave something behind. But when you have a kid, the real aim is to make sure that you equip them with everything you may need, and that's the most important part.

If you can do that, then you are going to be feeling absolutely no zero doubt that you tried your best. My parents are like that, they do not feel fear, sure they will not leave me with anything but their town house, which won't be worth much honestly, but they know that they gave me a great education, which is all they wanted.

Yeah, I get what you’re saying, and it is a good point… a lot of people focus so much on leaving something behind in terms of money or assets, but giving your kids the right mindset and education can sometimes pay off really well...

But just so we’re on the same page, what we are really focusing on in this discussion is not so much about kids or parenting, it is about how to balance those two things in the context of Bitcoin investing. That means where you are building your Bitcoin accumulation or stack using discretionary income, while still keeping your emergency funds untouched… Because once those two are in balance, you are not just investing, you are protecting yourself from having to panic sell or dip into your stack when life throws surprises…. We just chip in the kids talk bcus as a parent, inproper planning could slow you down in Bitcoin stacking…

And also, if years later that Bitcoin becomes something your kids inherit, then cool, that’s a nice extra win. But for now, the main focus should be staying steady and stacking smart, and not putting yourself in a position where you regret touching your stack….

I find your comment quite shocking and surprising for someone who’s been in the forum as long as you have and also a legendary member. What you’re saying goes to prove maybe you didn’t take bitcoin serious or have a good financial planning or you probably bought this account you’re using.
I’m aware people can go through some financial issues and difficulties but to this extent coming from this account it’s shocking if it were to come from a member rank or even a full member like me it can be understandable.
The Business you started with loans, seems you didn’t probably carry out all necessary research and feasibility studies to be in such huge debts and now making little gains, I’m sorry for your situation and pray your business grows and prospers, Goodluck.
My little advice while you’re settling the debts and surviving on your business, you can use some percentage of your campaign money to invest in bitcoin now and you’ll be glad you did in the future.

This cannot be compared to that situation, because providing a good education and sufficient needs is a parent's responsibility. Regarding investment, if we talk about investment, we will reap the rewards at the end of the story. You will get profits or returns from the concept of investment. Meanwhile, will you ask your child to work for you when you are old? Most parents are like that—they invest in their children, and in their old age, the children support their parents. In my opinion, that is not a good thing. If parents intentionally do that and ask their children to support them, they should let the children take the initiative on their own or without being asked.

Therefore, investing in that way is an outdated mindset. Providing the best for one’s children is the parents’ own responsibility. Therefore, all forms of financial preparation for the children from childhood to adulthood are the parents’ duty until the child eventually gets a job and can become independent.
On the other hand, you must prepare for your retirement or old age so as not to burden your children.

The thing is a lot of times we call everything emergency funds, but some of that money is really more like reserve funds. They are the money/funds you can use more flexibly, not just for emergencies, even though they can cover emergencies if needed. The difference is really about intention, emergency funds are strictly for those unexpected and urgent situations, while reserve funds are more like a safety net for things you might need or want.

It is easy to mix them up because, at the end of the day, both are there to give you Fin. security. But i think knowing the difference actually makes planning a lot easier. When you know which funds are untouchable and which you can use more freely, you reduce stress and make smarter financial moves. It is not about having less protection, it’s about using your money in a way that works best for you..

Maybe you have various funds, and you are used to keeping around $3k to $5k in various accounts for emergencies or whatever, and you will sometimes tap into those funds, but you don't ever let the funds go below $3k absent some really extra-ordinary circumstances, so in some practical sense you are treating $3k as emergency funds and whatever is above $3k you are treating as reserve funds. 

So maybe there might be one day that you know that you are going to be paid within 4 days, and you know that you will receive around $2k in extra funds, beyond your expenses.. so then on purpose you dip into your emergency funds and you cause it to go below $3k and you ONLY do that because you are confident that you will be able to replenish it in 4 days.  You are taking risks and it is a calculated risk that some guys might choose not to do.. and some guys would feel way more comfortable to just wait the extra 4 days because even the high confidence level is not enough to dip into the funds and your reason for doing so was not strong enough.  Maybe there was a flash dip in the BTC price and you wanted to use the money to buy bitcoin 4 days earlier than you regular buys.

Guys enforce their own rules and set forth their own parameters, and if they screw up, they are going to have to pay for it, and frequently guys will get better at figuring out limitations with more experience, and also the guy might come to realize that his bitcoin investment is right around $6k put into it, but its value is something like $12k, so he feels that maybe he might want to keep other kinds of back up funds besides his usual way of keeping his funds because he really wants to feel  like his bitcoin is protected since it is starting to get quite large... So maybe he establishes another fund in which he invests into something, but the fund is still liquid, but it would take 2 weeks to withdraw from it.. so it is an extra back up emergency fund, that he knows is available but he has to begin the withdrawal process 2 weeks in advance if he is going to tap into it.  Guys can get creative and the larger their bitcoin stash gets they might develop greater confidence, yet they also might want to take extra measures to protect portions of his stash in more archived kinds of ways.

This post applies to any form of investment. I wish i knew about this earlier maybe i wouldn't make the mistake i made.
Thank you

Yes, the expenses related to a child's needs are basically covered under our regular expenses, which may be essential for them to continue their education. It is much better to consider other appropriate options before using a financial safety net, i.e. an emergency fund, for a child's needs or wants, such as personal savings or separate savings, or even other savings even if he reaches the end of his funds, he can then look to his family for help. But it should always be remembered that this fund may be lacking in the future for emergencies, so it should be used with caution but it might be part of a healthy plan not to use it for small school fees, that is for trivial tasks and should not plan to use the cash reserve kept for unexpected expenses in any way.

To be honest with you, i didn't have the ideas of creating out emergency fund more of have a discretionary income to use for an investment but ever since i joined this forum i have learnt allot in the forum and this discretionary income i have use it to invest instead of saving it in the bank and it is in this forum that i understand how important emergency fund it is, ever since i have be practicing using my discretionary income for investment and emergency fund that can be of help to me not touch my discretionary income incase of any unforeseen circumstances and i have also spread it outside Bitcoin investments too, so as I'm investing and with emergency fund, I'm also having emergency fund outside my investment.

One thing is to be completely unprepared for child's extra expenses, and another thing is to maybe have some unexpected drainage of funds prior to the child's expenses coming due.  When the topic of child expenses initially came up it was a bad example, since it would not have had been an emergency in itself or a reason to use emergency funds... yet there can be all kinds of ways that folks screw up along the way if they might either be spending beyond their ability to save up the child expenses or maybe they are having troubles increasing their income.. so even if they know that the future child expense is coming, they are not making sufficient progress towards being able to meet that expense, and they might not even be living extravagantly, they might just be having a streak of bad luck. so then when push comes to shove when it comes time for the child's bill to be paid, and if the person really down to ONLY having their emergency fund, their bitcoin investment and/or their child being able to participate in the event or not, then they have to make a choice that they may have had preferred to not have to make..

So surely it is better to try to avoid putting ourselves in such dilemmas, which usually take quite a bit of preparation in advance, and yeah the more relationships, responsibilities or even some of the complications of owning our own business causes more needs to hold more cash in reserves so that we end up having more options the longer that we are in bitcoin and building up various aspects of our bitcoin holdings and strengthening our cashflow management systems/practices.  There may well be cases in which we have to start financially planning and preparing more than 4-6 months in advance to be able to meet our $200 extra child expense without having to feel like we are struggling at the last minute and left with a dilemma of choosing between our emergency funds, our bitcoin if we want our child to participate in the experience that we might have promised the year before. 

Sometimes emergencies do actually happen that force us to change our previous plans, yet it seems that if we are at least trying to prepare ourselves in advance then we might have had done as much as we were able to do under the circumstances that ended up unravelling, and we are ultimately responsible to figure out if there might be some ways that we can better plan and/or prepare ourselves if we frequently are running into scenarios in which we are never having enough money to do the things that we want or we think that we should be able to do.. which seems to ultimately boil down to whether there may be ways that we can increase our income and/or decrease our expenses.


Sure.  We can accept your representation that you have gotten better at managing your income/expenses and keeping back up funds, yet your ways of describing the various funds is very confusing.

Essentially if you are receiving an income every week or month, and then you have various expenses, then you would either pay your expenses from your income or at least account for the expenses prior to determining what is your discretionary income for that pay period.

With that discretionary income you can determine if you are going to consume beyond your basic expenses, invest or put the extra into your back up funds (which is either emergency funds or reserve funds). 

If you run out of discretionary income then you can tap into your back up funds.  You don't spend from your back up funds prior to running out of discretionary funds, even if your back up funds had previously been built from discretionary funds that came from earlier pay periods.

Many times when we are in the process of building up our back up funds so that we want to get them to at least 3 months of our expenses, we are not necessarily going back and forth tapping into them.  Each pay period we get more money and we might put some of the discretionary income from that into our investment (bitcoin) and/or consume with it and/or put some in our back up funds.

Frequently we suggest that it could take 1 -2 years for a guy to build up both his back up funds and the amount that he put into bitcoin to add up to 3 months of his expenses in each, yet of course, the more discretionary income he has, the greater progress he can make.  A guy putting less than 10% of his income into bitcoin and back up funds is going to take 3x longer than a guy who is able to put 30% of his income into bitcoin and his back up funds...

And, don't get me wrong. I am not suggesting that it is normal for guys to be able to invest/save 30% of their income, even though some are able to do it, and more commonly normal people struggle to get into a habit of regularly saving/investing  10% of their income.. so any newbies to bitcoin and/or investing likely have to struggle to try to get into the habit of being able to reach 10% for their investment/savings and work their way up to higher numbers, so that they make sure that they are not overdoing anything and/or making mistakes that involve their learning some new skills and putting them into regular practice... which can be fun, but at the same time may take some discipline and some going over various numbers and trying to fix mistakes that might be made along the way.

Emergency fund is use only for emergency needs. If we combine regular expenses with emergency fund, the purpose for which the emergency fund is formed will become worthless. If you lose your job or if you are the victim of an accident, then only that emergency fund should be used for that emergency moment. The expenditure that we spend on the use of clothes or food for the child is part of our regular expenses. But if that child were the victim of an accident, then only the emergency fund could be used. But the money from personal savings or income for daily life can be spent, the emergency fund should be used only for emergency purposes.

Yeah, you explained it really well, and it makes a lot of sense now. The changes Bitcoin has done in my life is something I won’t forget in my lifetime. For me, being a student, I have to be extra careful with how I handle my money since my main income isn’t super steady. I do some part time work on the side to get a bit more cash, but the temptation to spend is always there.....I remember telling someone here that I bought my first Bitcoin back in 2020 for $20 it is always something I will keep reminding people as part of my Bitcoin  journey ;D . Now, with the extra cash flow I have been able to save from part-time work and allowances, it gave me more edge to stack  Bitcoin little by little with much higher amounts than that first $20.

What’s been helping me is treating my back up funds like untouchable money until I have actually used up my discretionary income. With my current situation, I’m able to save 30% of my income now, even though it wasn’t easy at first......It’s a bit of a balancing act with studies, part time work, and saving, but over time, those small contributions really add up. Honestly, it makes me appreciate Bitcoin even more, knowing that even with little steps,  I ambuilding something that grows over time.

I still disagree, people who can control their finances, do not need emergency fund as extra buffer zone. If you know what you are doing, then you should be able to save what you do not need. "Emergency" is just not calculating it very well. I believe we do not need another fund, just put it on bitcoin and if you ever need it then if it's under, then it should be in USDT, if it's over then you are profiting.

There is no need for it, so a good investor won't make a loss and you wouldn't need anything else. I understand people may not agree with me, I have seen them not agree with me, and it has been pages, but I just do not see the benefit of it. The only claim so far has been "what if something unexpected happens", well that is what investment is for.

Your keeping your emergency fund in bitcoin is not a good idea - especially for poor people who might not have any mommy or daddy to go to bail them out when they fuck up..

USDT may serve the purpose of an emergency fund if you can convert it quickly to your local currency or however you pay your bills or whatever you might need if there is an actual emergency which is that basic expenses are greater than income.


If you know what you are doing so well, then why aren't you explaining the situation very well, except saying that emergency funds are not needed.  Have you ever thought that emergency funds is just a term for having back up cash?  Are you trying to act like you don't have back up cash?  I don't believe it.  Your assertions are ridiculous and likely untrue unless you live in a situation where someone else pays all of your expenses.  In other words, you come off as a presumptuous know it all twat to be suggesting that no financial cushion is needed.. especially for someone putting money into something as volatile as bitcoin.

Of course, you can do whatever you like, even dumb, risky and irresponsible shit...  and sure, if you have a variety of resources and even access to debt you might not need any emergency fund... .. but almost anyone who knows what the fuck they are doing is going to have some kind of a cash cushion in case he makes a mistake or for some reason expenses are greater than income for a month or two. .

and if he runs out of money then all he has left is his investment to draw upon, which he may not want to draw upon his investment, especially if he might have spent a year building it up so that he had invested 3 months of his income into it, but then the price of bitcoin is down 50% so he can only spend 1.5 months of expenses from that and then he has no other money.. so then he fucked himself out of a year's progress on his bitcoin merely because he thought that he was smarter than everyone else. You probably already have various cash cushions, but you call it something else.  perhaps?  or otherwise you are just taking chances that you don't need to take.

Sure there are some folks who have 2 or 3 jobs and they are very talented and liked so if they lose one job they have another job, but if they accidentally get hit by a bus or the roof of their house falls in or they get into some other accident, and if they do not have anything except their bitcoin and they cannot earn any money because they are recovering.. then they end up selling way more of their bitcoin than they needed to sell at a time that is not of their own choosing.

The amount of money that you have as a back up might vary, and if you have complicated income/expenses, like businesses and family obligations then you need more back up funds to cover a variety of cashflow issues that could come up and are likely to come up especially for folks who might already have erratic income and/or expenses.

Are you married and have children, and are you the breadwinner of the family who needs to take care of your parents or siblings?

I'm guessing you live alone and have nothing to worry about, or you still get financial support from your parents. Because I believe that any adult who has a family and children, even has to take care of old parents. They will always have a financial plan and an emergency fund will always be their top priority, not investing or trading. Because they know that the world is tough and bad things can happen at any time, and having an emergency fund is important. Only people who are single and have never experienced those challenges think that an emergency fund is unnecessary.

I don't totally agree with you sir because not everyone who is single or have not experienced bad things or tough... don't believe or think emergency funds is unnecessary. I can use myself as a case study here, I'm not married but single and I am Investing in Bitcoin with the knowledge and understanding that emergency funds is very vital through which I can keep my investment going without touching it. Investing in Bitcoin without emergency funds is negligence and it will surely back fire and when it does one's investment will be used to compensate and so whether someone has experienced these... Or not they should always know that emergency funds is very important and investing can not work for long without it.

The need for emergency fund can be for any level of people, married or unmarried. If I tell you my reality, I am still single and still fighting with poverty. I have to balance my income and expenses with my older parents and other family members. In the meantime, I am deposit Bitcoin but I know that at any time my older parents may get sick and they may need urgent medical treatment. I am doing my family responsibilities properly and depositing Bitcoin through discretionary fund.  Although I am in the initial stage investing Bitcoin, I am continuing Bitcoin by keeping a backup fund. This backup fund is for my parents emergency medical treatment and also regularly Bitcoin accumulation

I think it is more challenging for single people because most of them are young and not mentally mature and they are careless about spending money. Guys from poor families have more responsibility because they grow up in poverty and have to learn to take responsibility for the family at a young age and if they want to do something great for the future they should use discretionary fund properly. Poverty teaches them to face the difficult situations of the world and they want to be much bigger financially.

You should be very careful in taking care of your family responsibility and also managing your bitcoin investment because an emergency funds is not to accumulate bitcoin but to be a backup funds to your bitcoin investment so that, you don't sell your bitcoin investment before time when you are face with real life emergency.

Your discretionary income should be used for your regular weekly/monthly DCA accumulation. This is the reason why you must build up your emergency funds of at least three months of your monthly and stop. So that, you can channel that money into building your reserve funds and when that's set up, you are free to start investing into bitcoin with a large portion of your discretionary income.

I feel that you don't get the point why an emergency funds is needed and to be seperated for unforeseen circumstances that can play out during your accumulation stage. Imagine that you don't have any emergency funds and you lose your job, how will you fend for yourself till you get another job. It means that you will use your bitcoin investment as your emergency funds and sell part of it till you get a job.

This is why proper planning and cash inflow management is very important, because you will be ready for the worst case scenarios by setting up an emergency funds of at least three months of you income to backup your bitcoin investment from premature selling.

Anyone that does not set up an emergency funds as he starts his bitcoin investment will only be gambling and not investing because when you are hit with a real life emergency, and bitcoin price is below your entry point, you will sell at loss. As a long-term investor selling part of your bitcoin investment should be avoided till you reach a stage of over accumulation.

If I try to understand your point of view, some questions would pop up: Do you know what the next moment holds? How would you decide taking such level of risks with your bitcoin stash. Let's take a look at when bitcoin was at the $109k ATH and corrected at $74k. Any fund which could handle a particular emergency situation at the period would not be able handle same situation when it dipped to $74k. This is a more recent occurrence and bitcoin volatility doesn't allow anyone to know the next move neither does emergency situation announce it's date. Sometimes we are too sure to allow nature play its role. If emergency funds are not provided for, you end up selling larger part of your bitcoin to solve a problem that could have been solved with something less. A person can be optimistic and very assuming but even the smallest of unforeseen circumstances can be very difficult to handle when you don't have a reserved emergency funds.

The only challenge I find with this your assumption is that I can't find your strategy for any emergency situation. If you can relate how you can handle an unplanned situation that needs urgent attention, then maybe we all can buy the idea. Or are you okay with running a loss which even after the loss may not be enough to handle same situation that some emergency funds could have handled with less stress?

Yeah sure, I feel this is the bottom line. Everyone can choose what to do with their funds but what also intrigues me is that when emergency situation happens, it somehow affects even those that were not directly involved. So it won't be wrong making suggestions on the right choice even though everyone has the freedom to choose at all time. Can a person build a house without a pillar?? Unlikely! But if someone has a solution to that, then let him face it.


Having many streams of income is even better because it allows you gather more emergency funds to cushion your bitcoin stash. Bitcoin accumulation should not be met with extreme greed by investing every of your income while either pursuing an accumulation target or over accumulation. You can not be too focused on your accumulation target and focus its safety and human life. Would you not want to attend to important situations just because you are investing in bitcoin? Life has some basic responsibilities of which attending to emergency situation is one of them.

To an extent, anyone who cannot be disciplined to maintain an emergency funds has likelihood of not attending to his basic responsibilities too because he sees spending money elsewhere as a waste of time and overlooks everything believing that whenever he sales off his bitcoin he can pay for every of the missed responsibilities. But life does not happen the way we choose, there are some things that needs to be done as at when due after which may not be possible.

Somehow, I may tend to understand that bitcoin gamblers exist and they claim to be higher risk takers. They may not be willing to keep any money aside because they believe that the more amount you gamble, the higher chances of making it bigger.

You are right, it is not an emergency fund to deposit Bitcoin, he needs to create an emergency fund to meet his family needs and his own expenses, where he can deposit money using the DCA method. Because when he invests in Bitcoin, if at that time he has an illness or needs emergency money, he should not want to sell his Bitcoin investment and he can use the money from his emergency fund. Like a person uses a life jacket to float on water, which acts as a support to save him from drowning.

Both are very vital when comes to bitcoin investment (discretionary income and emergency funds ) . You need discretionary income to keep buying , because is like a left over which means that is money they you can put into anything (like your savings or investments) .

While emergency funds, certain amounts of money set aside to play the role of taken care of emergency expenses.  And some time , some expenses come without any warning . So emergency funds always there to take care of such expenses.

Yeah you’re right, both are really important because if you do not have an emergency fund, life will eventually corner you into selling your Bitcoin at a bad time. People throw everything into BTC, then when an unexpected expense comes up, they panic sell and end up regretting it later. Having that backup cash on the side just makes the whole journey less stressful.

And with discretionary income, that is honestly what keeps your buying consistent without messing with your daily needs. Since it is extra money, you do not feel the pressure when the market dips, you just keep stacking little by little. One takes care of the present, the other builds the future, that balance is what makes the whole plan work.

To sustain a Bitcoin investment, you definitely need both discretionary income and emergency funds. Because you are not following the Bitcoin investment DCA method for a short period of time, it is a long-term package that will protect your Bitcoin investment so that you do not face danger for a long time.
In daily life, dangers are surrounding people, so the emergency fund will guard your investment every moment. Because the more your income increases, the more Bitcoin you can collect according to the DCA method.

These are important things, if you want to sustain an investment for the long term, it is essential to have all the necessary funds, as well as all kinds of preparations. There is no way to say when unexpected situations will occur in your life, but unexpected situations will definitely come. So, if you have an emergency fund at such a time, it is possible to keep the original investment intact in any unexpected situation. Because at that time you will not have to face a situation like selling your investment. So it is very effective that if you have both discretionary income and emergency funds ready, it is possible to keep the investment consistent and sustain it safely for the long term.

The truth is, nobody can really hold Bitcoin long term if they do not have their basics covered.. If you don’t have free cash to invest and some emergency savings on the side, life will always find a way to push you into selling your Bitcoin too early. That is why people who plan properly last longer in the game, they are not pressured to touch their BTC when small problems come up.

DCA only works well when you are not investing with shaky hands. If you know your rent, bills, and daily needs are sorted, then every bit of Bitcoin you buy becomes untouchable, and you can let it sit there for years. That is where the real magic happens.. As your income grows, you can increase your contributions and build a stronger position without feeling stressed. It is just about patience, planning, and protecting your future bag….

I agree with the two recommendations you made for long term Bitcoin investment sustainability. Another thing I would like to add is that when you implement your own strategy for long term management it will be consistent with your daily life and expenses how you organize your investments and grow your Bitcoin holdings. In the long term effort you will encounter many problems and sometimes you may get upset and feel pressured to withdraw your valuable holdings. What should be the amount of emergency fund, how many months it is safe for you and your investments, your income and discretionary funds these are important things to decide for yourself.

In some instance and depending on the financial solvency and less solvency of the investors there is an opinion in favor of keeping three months or six months or even one year in an emergency fund but it is advisable to be against holding excess amounts of fiat currency such as three months or an additional three months.

That is true, keeping your own strategy is more important than all of this. Most of the time people say have 6 months of salary in your bank account for emergency and that should be enough. I mean unless something HUGE Happens, then 6 month salary should be enough. In this case, that means, you should just save 10% to 25% of your salary, for a short period of time.

So, let's assume that you make 1000 dollars, that means 6000 dollars is enough to save, so if you keep lets say 150 dollars a month to save, then in 40 months you have enough. Now, that may "sound" a lot, but humans live around 70+ years, not all of us of course, but that is the average age, and giving up just 4 years of that, in return of having decades easier, I would say it's a good idea. After you reach that? You put all your savings into investment. That is the suggestion at least.

Each of us should attempt to use our discretion regarding what minimally to have and perhaps a range of what we might keep for back up funds.

I tend to suggest 3-6 months with 3 months being the emergency fund, which means that he second 3 months is somewhat optional depending on your circumstances.  I also suggest it to be 3 months of expenses rather 3 months of income. 

Of course, many folks might already be in the habit of keeping some back up funds that might be 2-6 weeks of their expenses, so when they come to bitcoin, it tends to be important to work on building a higher amount based on a higher importance not to tap into bitcoin at a time that is not of your own choosing.. so there is an extra effort to create a greater gap so that you don't have to tap into your bitcoin... another thing is that guys likely should be trying to get started investing into bitcoin as soon as possible and to start to build their bitcoin investment, so they can measure how much back up funds they have and perhaps make their initial investments into bitcoin at a similar rate as they are growing their back up funds, and this can be a bit of risky period since the back up funds will likely not even add up to 3 months of expenses in the earliest stages of building up the bitcoin investment.

If a guy has a lot of expenses like a business or a family or some other complications of irregular income, then he is likely going to need to have more back up funds as compared with someone who has fewer expenses and fewer complications in his income and/or expenses.

Many regular folks have difficulties saving/investing even 10% of their salary, and so we can imagine that 10% is only going to allow the putting away of 1 year's salary after 10 years, and so if guys are able to save/invest at greater rates, such as 25%, then they are able to put 1 years salary away in merely 4 years.  So if a guy is starting from nothing or he does not have large amounts of discretionary income, then it is going to take longer to build his investment and his back up funds - including if he might end up tapping into his back up funds while he is building them up.. which sometimes end up happening when guys might be trying to take care of his expenses and trying to earn more money to increase his discretionary income, yet sometimes he might have shortages in income and increases in expenses.

Yes long term investment is only possible when an investor is investing using his or her discretionary income. Making use money that is meant for our expenses or money that we may be needing soon to invest in bitcoin with the plan of holding for a long term it won't really be possible since we will be left with no other options but to option for sale whenever the need for the money invested arise. So the best way is to invest from our discretionary income, this is the only way we can be able to hold for a longer term while dcaing without being pressured to temper with our bitcoin.

This one big mistake a lot of people make when they first come into Bitcoin. They get too excited and end up putting in money they actually need for bills, school fees, rent or just daily survival, and when life eventually hits, they have no choice but to sell off their Bitcoin way too early. That’s not really investing, that’s just stressing yourself and setting up for regret. Bitcoin is supposed to give you peace of mind long term, not put you under pressure short term.

That’s why I always say discretionary income is the real key to building a strong Bitcoin position. When you use money that you don’t urgently need, you give yourself the freedom to just sit back, DCA consistently and let time do the magic. No panic selling, no sleepless nights, just patience and conviction. At the end of the day, those who separate their living money from their investing money are the ones who last long enough to actually see the full reward Bitcoin brings.

Absolutely correct and I hope many investors would understand this and stop investing all they have on Bitcoin without left over that can be used to take care of emergency bills that might come unexpectedly. Being a crypto investor is not all about buying and holding Bitcoin for as long as possible but making sure that their are funds ability Incase we find ourselves in circumstances that needed fund to keep us safe and out of reproach that could make us a laughing stock.

There is what we call discretionary income, as an investor you should figure this out of your income, there is also emergency funds which I believe that all investors understands that emergency funds are primarily funds set aside to tackle emergency which are unexpected occurrence why you are going about your investment, this emergency funds should be on its separate place and as investor don't ever think if making use of this for investment purpose because this fund is what will help you not to rely on your investment for solving emergency needs.
This is the reason why every investor should make sure the weigh their income, share it evenly in different parts, the investment should be on it own and that should be when you might have making provisions for everything, they emergency funds well kept then you can invest with the remaining funds which is now the discretionary income, this discretionary might be huge amount because it depends on the investor's income daily, weekly monthly.

Separating emergency funds from investment money is one of the most important habits an investor can develop too many people dive into opportunities without first creating a cushion and when unexpected situations appear they are forced to pull money out of investments often at the worst possible moment an emergency fund provides stability and peace of mind it allows an investor to stay patient with the market even during periods of volatility. Discretionary income is where investment decisions should come from once basic needs are covered and an emergency fund is in place the remaining portion becomes available for building wealth using only discretionary funds keeps investments healthier because the money is not tied to day to day survival this creates freedom to hold long term positions without the stress of needing to liquidate quickly.

An emergency fund should sit completely separate from investment accounts not touched no matter how tempting it might feel during market opportunities its purpose is to protect against sudden medical bills job loss car repairs or other unexpected expenses the presence of this safety net prevents unnecessary financial pressure and helps maintain consistency with an investment strategy. Different people set aside different amounts some keep three months of expenses others prefer six months or more depending on responsibilities and lifestyle the larger the safety net the more confidence an investor will feel when committing discretionary income toward higher risk or long term ventures.

You’re right, emergency fund is not meant to be touched for any kind of investment opportunity, no matter how good it looks in the moment. The whole idea of that money is peace of mind, knowing that if something unexpected like health issues, loss of income, or even a sudden repair comes up, you have a cushion to fall back on. Without it, you are only setting yourself up for panic decisions that will affect your bigger plans.

I also feel like once you separate that emergency money from your investment mindset, you actually become a better and more consistent investor. There is no extra pressure to pull out funds when markets swing, and you can stay disciplined with your long term strategy…

As the name implies discretionary income and emergency fund, has different purpose when it comes to Bitcoin investments, first the discretionary income is an income that is left with you after you have might finished paying of bills and it is still the discretionary income that can pave way for you to use to invest Bitcoin portfolio why emergency fund it is very important and necessary for every investor should be able to create out emergency fund during the process of accumulating your Bitcoin portfolio so that an investors can be able to tackle unforeseen circumstances.

In light of this it implies that no matter how small it can be provided that the intention is for long term plans it is important to be positive, consistence and with passage of time when put together will definitely make a reasonable amount, this is one thing most people forget by thinking that they must have a larger amount before they can start investment in Bitcoin, I alw found investing from discretionary income as a calculated risk since your basic needs has been taken care of before investing from the remaining money and without this it can be difficult to hold for long and that is where the treasure is.

If you measure backup funds by expenses instead of income, it really changes the calculation. Three months of expenses is already tough for most people, and the extra three months is more like a safety net for those with unpredictable situations.

The tricky part is when someone is just starting out. In the first stage, you are trying to stack Bitcoin and build that cushion at the same time. That is when most people slip, because one unexpected bill wipes out their savings and forces them to sell sats. Even a small buffer before going heavy into accumulation helps avoid that problem.

Looking at savings rates shows how big the gap can be. Saving ten percent means you need ten years just to put aside one year’s salary, while at twenty five percent you reach that point in only four years. That difference completely changes how quickly both reserves and Bitcoin can be built up.....Although for me I think a balanced approach early on works best. Grow the backup fund and stack at the same time, then once three months of expenses are covered, lean harder into Bitcoin. That way you do not end up in a position where a short term problem forces you to undo years of stacking.