re: Finally found someone that agrees with me on the absurdity of the emergency fund

Maybe I didn't read through the link carefully enough, but I found that part curious too.

If the main point is that it's not necessary to have an emergency fund in wads of hundreds under the mattress, then OK. But having been through two deep recessions (so far), I know VERY well that considering HELOCs, credit cards, or other borrowed funds, to be part of any sort of emergency fund is wishful thinking at best. I was in the middle of a 60% LTV refi when the credit markets froze up about a decade ago. My loan was approved but the bank president called me to say that they couldn't fund it at that time. It took an additional two weeks to get it closed. I had a personal line of credit with them also. That got arbitrarily cut in half. The (unused) HELOC that I had with BofA got totally wiped out. Banks were cutting and freezing lines of credit and card limits left and right - even for higher net worth/income borrowers. A friend of mine who typically borrowed against invoices nearly lost his business because of financing issues.

So there I was thinking that I had the world on a string with a good net worth, high credit score, good income, equities and properties... and I felt like a wet cigarette at a party. After that, I've always kept a few thousand squirreld away. Although I'd consider free cash in my trading account, my Roth and other liquid assets to be available in a true emergency. If the lost interest and opportunity cost of that really affects me over the next 10-15 years, I likely did some other things "wronger" than that.