Thank you all for you advice on the mental issue I was having regarding the lack of deck or fire excape as I was looking at it.

""I honestly don't think Dave Ramsey would say it is okay to borrow money for a deck. However, he might think it a safety issue and a priority. He would tell you to take a second job, sell everything you can and use the cash on hand you have. In other words, everything you can think of doing before you would go into debt further."" (Need to go back later and give credit to the poster)

I wanted to post about what I am thinking of doing to get my EF funded.

First: I have responded to an ad online looking for a roommate. I am thinking that for a while I will rent out a room in my house. This is not nearly as much money as a parttime job but after you deduct all the costs with parttime work it would be about half of what my take home would be, equal to it IF I could rent out two rooms.

I am going to look into seeing if there are any jobs in town that I could work from home. I would like to pick up a second job but because I would have to line up daycare and it would have to be when I am not working my primary job it would make it not super easy to do. I also have to get approval from my employer to work outside my home so I am thinking internet in the evenings. If I can find something internet than even if my job took me out of town as long as I have internet acess I could still pull in work. Or the job would have to be one where I could bring my son along (part-time evening nanny).

I have a few items I could sell, I just had a rummage sale and plan to have another next summer for the small things. I need to put ads out for the few large items I do have to sell to make a little money.

Okay now thirdly the "Use the money you have" The point of an emergency fund is to plan for unexpected events. Truthfully My job is secure I have a contract (just not the orders yet) for a 6 year position. So the Emergency Fund is fine at 3 mths. The Escrow and Mortgage do need to be at 12 Months because the posibility of needing to have then autopaid for extended periods without me being able to oversee it are more likely.

So I am going to buy the 3 rolling ladders
then I am going to continue to work on increasing income
then I am going to save for the Mortgage and Escrow.
then once those are at the 12 months I will save for the Emergency Fund and deck.

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The only blip that is going to be on the horizon is in Dec. I NEED to have a months cushion in my checking account at that time as that is when my contract moves from old to new and pay is ALWAYS messed up for atleast one pay period where you end up waiting on the first check to cut.