Creating an Emergency Fund: Essential Steps and Tips

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Correction history

Every accepted correction to this page is recorded with the exact change, so readers can see how the page improved over time.

1. 28 July 2026 · corrected by Emir Baycan

   Corrected multiple mis-citations and overstated claims: re-attributed the Benartzi-Thaler savings work to their Save More Tomorrow (SMarT) program in the Journal of Political Economy (2004) rather than the Journal of Consumer Research; removed a false attribution of an unemployment-duration finding to Abraham and Spletzer's 2009 AER paper (which is on returns to job skills) and sourced the duration point to BLS data; corrected the financial-fragility citation to Lusardi, Schneider, and Tufano and their ,000-in-30-days measure; distinguished the Urban Institute and the Financial Health Network as separate organizations and reframed the first-,000 finding as correlational rather than causal; and softened an 'almost always a mistake' absolute about raiding an emergency fund to acknowledge that the right call can depend on the debt's interest rate.

   Before

   The article cited a Benartzi-Thaler 2004 Journal of Consumer Research study, an Abraham-Spletzer 2009 unemployment-duration finding, a Lusardi-Tufano 2015 Journal of Consumer Affairs study, an Urban Institute Financial Health Network causal ,000 effect, and an almost-always-correct debt-versus-savings rule.

   After

   Fixed each citation to the correct authors, journals, and study topics, reframed the ,000 finding as correlational, separated the two named organizations, and qualified the debt-versus-savings guidance.

   Why: The studies exist but were attributed to the wrong journals or topics, and some claims were stated more causally or absolutely than the evidence supports. Corrections fix the citations and scope the claims rather than adding new sources.

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Full contribution timeline

1. Correction 28 July 2026

   Emir Baycan: Corrected multiple mis-citations and overstated claims: re-attributed the Benartzi-Thaler savings work to their Save More Tomorrow (SMarT) program in the Journal of Political Economy (2004) rather than the Journal of Consumer Research; removed a false attribution of an unemployment-duration finding to Abraham and Spletzer's 2009 AER paper (which is on returns to job skills) and sourced the duration point to BLS data; corrected the financial-fragility citation to Lusardi, Schneider, and Tufano and their ,000-in-30-days measure; distinguished the Urban Institute and the Financial Health Network as separate organizations and reframed the first-,000 finding as correlational rather than causal; and softened an 'almost always a mistake' absolute about raiding an emergency fund to acknowledge that the right call can depend on the debt's interest rate.

   Proof record →