<prompt> Human: Maybe this isnt an original idea, but I always dreaded the 3-6 month emergency fund suggestion because it always felt like a pipe dream. Im a grad student and my husband works minimum wage to support us, and things have been tight for a long time. But I realized the other day that we have a ghetto version of a 3-6 month emergency fund! So I thought Id share what weve done. As a disclaimer, I know this isnt ideal. But its realistic and it works.The first step is making a budget. Include all expenses for the year, including annuals such as car registration, renters insurance, gifts for all occassions, etc. We also budget car maintenance, dog vet visits, etc. Thats a different post, and theres plenty of suggestions around here.Step two is to adjust your budget to include the maximum you can expect to spend in a month on an bill. For example, our winter electric bill is highest at 90month, so we set our monthly budget at that point. Another example is we still have our gas budget set as though gas were 4gallon even though its less than 2 where we live.The next step is to use the envelope system ally savings account system to roll over the extras each month. We have a utilities savings account where we put all of our left over money from our electric bill. We have an envelope with cash for our car gas. Although its taken a year and a half, we now have about 600 saved in our utilities account which is actually more than 6 months savings! For gas we have about 200! We also keep shoveling away our car maintenance and vet visit money into respective savings accounts which have built up enough money for at least two normal trips to each place. We do the same thing with our car payment. I know none of this is ideal even having a car payment but it works for us. My husband gets paid every 2 weeks, so we pay half a car payment every paycheck. On the months he gets three paychecks, we still make that payment. And because were feeling good about saving in other bill areas, we add that extra money to our car payment. Were 2.5 months ahead on our car payment which is great in case something happens.The biggest obstacle has been rent, because its expensive. All of our windfall money tax returns mostly goes into a rent savings account. Its a slow build, but well keep pushing. I hope this post is encouraging for fellow poor people. Were fortunate because we dont have kids, but weve also been dumb and have a car payment, dogs, cell phones, etc on minimum wage. If we can do it, you can do it too!Edit: I forgot to mention this other piece: we budget household items and spend that money entirely every month. If we dont have anything urgent to buy, we buy an extra thing of toilet paper, laundry detergent, etc. This way we have a stockpile and we can be flexible if money needs to go elsewhere.  <response>: Thanks for sharing, Ive never heard of this way of saving money, and its not conventional, but its working for you. Thats what matters, and hopefully it will help someone else who is struggling to save money. 