How not to dive-bomb your budget if you need a car repair before you have finished saving your $1,000 emergency fund:
If you start to feel that something is going wrong with your car, the best option would be to just return home and park your car in the parking lot, and don't use your car until you can pay cash for any sort of potential repair, and continue to save over the next several months. Later you can have that repair done and pay for it with cash. Dave Ramsey says to pay for everything with cash up front (or use a debit card only...i.e. already saved cash). The implication is then that if one doesn't have the money for a repair, or a broken window in a house, or , or, or.... they do without their car temporarily (or tape their house window, or, or, or) and carpool or take public transportation, just long enough to save for that bill.
If such a need for a car repair happens to you when you are living in a place that has ample public transportation, you can, without skipping a beat, temporarily use that price-subsidized public service...or hire an Uber for anywhere else you'd still like to have liberty to go to.
If, instead, one puts such an unexpected repair bill immediately on their credit card, they will immediately be right back in debt. Debt always has a depressing emotional component, making one wake up every morning feeling oppressed...and takes forever to pay off...a lingering tyranny. It feels like "heaven on earth" to lay one's head upon one's pillow at night, every night, as a strong fiscal habit for all of one's life, owing no man anything...not even one cent.
