Frances Cook

Because you can't be cashing out of shares when you have an emergency in your life.

The emergency could be that you've lost your job, which is happening because the economy has suddenly tanked.

It's absolutely a possibility right now.

And if that is the case, then your shares will also be worth less because, well, the economy is tanking.

tanking.

And you'll be forced to sell them when they're worth less, possibly a lot less.

When the share market goes down, it can really go down.

And that's fine if you can sit back and wait it out.

I've done that before more than once.

Overall, made a lot of money by sitting back and waiting it out.

But if you're forced to cash out at exactly those sorts of times,

Because you've tried to pull a clever trick and get a little extra by putting your savings into shares, the emergency money you were relying on might be so much less than you need.

And you will lose so much more money overall than what you would have lost by just biting the bullet and putting some of that safety money into savings.

It sucks.

But those emergency savings need to stay in cash, easy to get if you need them, and keeping their same value.

The good thing is by the time you follow the investing I talk about elsewhere on the podcast, you stick with it for a few years, those emergency savings will eventually look so small that you won't care if they're cash.

10 grand in a bank account will feel big at the beginning of your financial independence journey.

By the end, it will look small and you truly won't care about any missed opportunities there.

I'm not joking.

Let me come back to that point in just a moment.