It’s important that you know you are an emotional spender and that you are keeping that under control right now – good for you!

Continued prayers for your Mom, her doctors, and your family as you work thru this. Remember to take some personal ‘time-out’ if possible, to recharge and rejuvenate your own batteries

Very good and timely post! Hang in there!

@DavidK: They have a few guidelines to follow for allowing patients to return to “the floor,” but unfortunately my mom has failed to reach any of those milestones. And you’re right–the bills are astronomical!

I know it’s a small thing to pick out, but you state: “In a qualified crisis it seems a bit petty to be concerned with pinching pennies,…”
For some reason when I hear things like this and to the effect of, “help those around you even if you need help yourself” I always am reminded of those flight safety speeches as done by the flight attendants. “If the oxygen masks deploy, make sure to fit your own mask first and then help those around you.” The first time I heard this, I thought it amazing that in this PC world of “give give give till it hurts” that there are some small islands of common sense. You cannot help others without making sure that you are at least somewhat ok first. Though others may call it selfish or petty, it is the best way to approach an emergency situation. They give the same advice in beach safety: only help other swimmers if you are either experienced at doing it or are a strong swimmer yourself. It is best for all involved if you don’t drown in debt trying to (financially) save someone else.

I commend you FrugalDad for keeping an eye on your budget even during stressful times such as this. It is difficult but will be quite worth it when you finally come to the other side.

@Kristen: First of all, thanks for being a reader and sharing your comments. I love the thought of “frugal family finances” spreading across the globe to Australia!

Since you are debt free, establishing a solid emergency fund of roughly six months of expenses should be your next priority. No set rule on how much to divert to savings to hit this first savings goal, but we’ve tried to sock away about 15% of my take-home pay to build up our emergency fund. As for other spending categories, I like the idea of saving for things you know will happen regularly–Christmas, annual bills, etc. Breaking these annual expenses up into smaller chunks will make it easier to save throughout the year. Go ahead and start saving towards these recurring expenses while also building your emergency fund. Once the emergency fund is in place you can turn to more targeted savings funds for things like a new house, a new car, educational goals, etc.

Thanks again for visiting Frugal Dad–let me know if you have any other questions I can address, and feel free to email me any time.

I am a newcomer too and have been really enjoying reading your blog. Even though I live on the other side of the Globe in Australia I find that the things you write about are practical and can be applied in my life too. I have a question about budgets too. What percentage of our take home salary should we be aiming to save? Also is this percentage before or after we have contributed to an emergency fund? We have no debt other than our mortgage, have money saved for incoming bills etc. The difficulty that we are having is deciding how much we should be setting aside each month for an emergency fund and how much can/should go into straight savings. Also is there any point to plain old savings or should this be put into various saving categories like clothing/holidays/entertainment etc – the more discretionary type categories? Sorry for all the questions. Hope you can help us!