We have an emergency fund but it's sort of a catch-all for anything that comes up. I suppose the heart of the matter is that I'd like to separate out a few things to specifically save for, rather than just one big pot of money whose definition is "emergency". It's good to have some in such a fund, but I think I would ultimately be more satisfied to have saved specifically for a car (or any specific thing). Otherwise I wind up feeling sort of guilty for spending X on something that I could have spent some smaller amount, even if I actually like X a lot. For example, we did this for a big trip and I was way more relaxed on spending during that, and thus had more fun than if we'd just decided to go and taken the money out of the amorphous emergency fund. I don't think we even spent all we had saved for it, but I wasn't stressing out about this dinner or that hotel room because I knew we'd already saved specifically for this and were supposed to use it to have fun. Having a smaller initial goal for the car makes sense, then later I can throw little bones to it (like maybe a set amt every time I ride my bike to work or something) so to get a few more bells and whistles in terms of age or whatever when I do need to replace the car. The car may last 2 years or 10 but I want to be happy with going to a seller with whatever amount I have (or less) and buying something I like and then enjoying knowing I worked to save for it. Maybe that makes more sense? Anyway, thanks for the replies.