When my job required me to return to the office, I used my emergency fund to quit. It worked out, but I should have saved more.

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• In 2022, my employer announced that we'd to the office after two years of working remotely.
• After weighing my options, I quit. I relied on my emergency fund while searching for jobs.
• This article is part of "Milestone Moments," a series about financial planning for major life events.

In late February 2020, I started my first full-time office job. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit about a month later, I started working remotely.

For two years I continued to work from home, and I found that it worked much better for me than working in person did. When my company required us to return to the office three days a week, the added stress and commuting time convinced me I needed to look elsewhere for a remote job. But I found myself too tired to effectively job search at the end of the workday.

I weighed my options, checked my emergency fund, and decided to quit my job before finding another position. I don't regret doing it, but I wish I'd used more effective methods to build up my emergency fund beforehand — such as creating a budget and using a high-yield savings account — so I'd have more time to find a job that was a good fit for my career goals.

What I could have done better when saving

When I quit, I had enough money in my emergency fund to cover my expenses for about five months. This gave me enough time to find another remote job, which I did in about two months, but it didn't give me enough time to be picky. I ended up taking a contract job that wasn't a great fit for my career goals or skills. By the end of my first year at this new job, I'd transitioned to doing only occasional freelance work, leaving me without a primary source of income for several months.

If I had been more careful about building an emergency fund while working at my old job, I would have had more time to search for a new one. My biggest mistake was keeping all my money in a checking account. While my checking account was technically interest-bearing, I would've gotten a much better rate if I used a high-yield savings account to build my money. I left several hundred dollars' worth of interest on the table that would've helped during the job search.

My second big mistake was not having a plan for how to budget. Being frugal allowed me to save up even with my relatively low salary, but I didn't have a big-picture idea of what my paycheck was going toward or how much I was saving each month. If I'd had a budgeting plan, I would have not only been able to save money more effectively but avoided significant stress wondering what I could and couldn't afford to do.

How I've improved my emergency fund

Now that I'm in a place where I can build my emergency fund up again, I've been doing things a little differently to help reach my savings goals.

Instead of keeping all my money in my checking account, I've opened an Ally savings account. While there are high-yield savings accounts with higher interest rates out there, I'm still earning a good rate with Ally, and I appreciate the account's perks and lack of monthly service fees.

I've also started following the 50/30/20 rule, which says you should put 50% of your income toward your needs (such as housing and bills), 30% toward wants (for me, things like new books and games), and 20% toward debt or savings. This budgeting strategy works well for me because I get paid the same amount each pay period, so I don't have to recalculate the percentages each month. It's also easier for me to follow than a traditional zero-balance budget, which requires you to keep track of each dollar you save and spend.

I'm very lucky not to have any debt I need to pay off, so I put the full 20% into my savings. Each month I max out my health-savings-account contributions, put some money into a 401(k), and put the rest into my savings account.

I love the job I have now, and I don't plan on leaving anytime soon. But with my new saving and budgeting strategies, I can feel more prepared in case of layoffs, health emergencies, or other unexpected events. I can also start building toward my financial goals and working harder on my retirement plan.