<prompt> Human: Hi rpf,My wife was in a car accident this week and her car was totaled. Were going car shopping later today and I was wondering to myself if it made more sense to pay for the difference between the insurance payout out of pocket or through financing.Here are the details:Cash: 38K. Of that, 31K is in a savings account with 1.85 interest. The rest is in a checking account. 25K if the savings is an emergency fund. The rest is set aside for other goals.Car: The cars were looking at are in the 15-18K price range. Her insurance payout is 10K. She still owed about 2K on the totaled car, so were probably looking at net cash out the door of 7-10K. Each of the cars were looking at are 2013 or newer with around 70,000 miles or less. I understand the optimal scenario here is to purchase a car for less than the insurance payout, but the search for a car that checks off all of our boxes she wants a bigger car with certain features, this search would probably prove fruitless, particularly given our time horizon.Financing: my credit union offers 3-year financing for 2.24 APR. Bearing all of this in mind, Im leaning toward financing the difference and maintaining the balance in my emergency fund. The 0.4 APR difference over that time is probably less than 100 and it gives us more flexibility in the case we encounter an emergency we cant borrow against. But, I wanted to make sure my logic was sound. Thanks in advance!  <response>: Agreed. Additional financing cost is negligible. Save your emergency money for an emergency 