There is a standard piece of financial advice that gets thrown around constantly: “You need to save three to six months of living expenses.” If you are currently living paycheck to paycheck, reading that advice probably makes you want to laugh (or cry). When you are juggling rent, groceries, gas, and utility bills, the idea of hoarding thousands of dollars in a savings account feels about as realistic as flying to Mars. You aren’t trying to build an empire; you’re just trying to make it to Friday.

Here is the hard truth: you are the person who needs that safety net the most. When you are walking the financial tightrope, one gust of wind—a flat tire, a cavity, a broken phone screen—can knock you off balance completely.

Building a buffer when you have zero wiggle room is hard, but it isn’t impossible. It requires a different strategy. You can’t save huge chunks of money, so you have to save tiny, almost invisible amounts. It’s about changing your defense. While a flexible line of credit or an online loan can act as a temporary shield when disaster strikes, the ultimate goal is to build a cash wall that protects you from the stress of the unexpected.

Here is how to start building that wall, even if you can only lay one brick at a time.

1. Forget the $1,000 Goal

The biggest mistake people make is setting the bar too high. If you set a goal to save $1,000 and you only have $10 left over at the end of the month, you will get discouraged and quit. The math just looks too depressing.

So, lower the bar. Drastically. Make your goal $50. That’s it. Just $50. If you can save $50, you can cover a tank of gas. You can cover a co-pay at the doctor’s. You can buy groceries for a few days. All of those count as a win. Once you hit $50, aim for $100. Then $200.

By focusing on small goals, you trick your brain. You get the dopamine hit of achieving a target quickly, which motivates you to keep going. It stops being a mountain you have to climb and becomes a series of small steps you just have to take.

2. The Round Up Strategy

If you can’t squeeze money out of your budget, let technology do it for you. Most major banks now offer “round-up” programs. Here is how it works: You buy a coffee for $3.50. The bank rounds the transaction up to $4.00 and moves that extra $0.50 into a savings account automatically.

You will never miss fifty cents. It’s too small to impact your daily life. You won’t feel it when you check your balance. But if you use your debit card 30 times a month, those tiny amounts start to stack up. You might find yourself with an extra $30 or $40 at the end of the month without ever consciously trying to save.

It’s painless saving. It capitalizes on the fact that we are creatures of habit. If you don’t see the money, you don’t spend it.

3. Clear Out Your Subscriptions

We all have them. The streaming service you signed up for to watch one show and forgot to cancel. The app free trial that quietly converted into a $9.99 monthly charge. The gym membership you swear you are going to use “next week.”

Sit down with your last three bank statements. Go through them line by line. Highlight anything that is a recurring charge. Be ruthless. If you haven’t used it in the last 30 days, kill it. Even if it’s just $5 a month.

If you can find $20 worth of unused subscriptions to cancel, don’t just absorb that money back into your checking account. Set up an automatic transfer for that exact amount to go into your emergency fund every month. You were already living without that money (since you were wasting it), so you won’t feel the pinch. You are simply redirecting the waste into savings.

4. Sell the Clutter

Sometimes, the best way to jumpstart a fund isn’t to save income, but to create it. Look around your space. You are likely sitting on hundreds of dollars of “stuff” that you don’t use. That old pile of DVDs? The coat you haven’t worn in two years? The kitchen gadget still in the box?

The goal isn’t to get top dollar; the goal is speed. Price things to move. If you can generate $150 in a weekend by clearing out your closet, put that $150 directly into a separate savings account. Do not touch it.

Seeing that balance jump from $0 to $150 overnight changes your mindset. Suddenly, you have a foundation and something to protect. It breaks the psychological feeling of being “broke.”

5. The Windfall Rule

Living paycheck to paycheck means you usually spend everything you make. But occasionally, money drops into your lap outside of your normal wages.

• A tax refund.
• A birthday gift from grandma.
• Selling an item (as mentioned above).
• Overtime pay.

The rule is simple: windfalls do not exist. When this money arrives, pretend it never happened. Before you can think of a way to spend it, transfer 100% (or at least 50%) of it to your emergency fund. Since this money wasn’t part of your monthly budget for rent or food, saving it shouldn’t hurt. These are the moments where you can make giant leaps forward in your savings goals.

6. Separate the Money

This is critical. Do not keep your emergency fund in your checking account. If the money is sitting right next to your grocery money, you will accidentally spend it. You will see a high balance and think, “Oh, I can afford the extra-large pizza.”

Open a high-yield savings account at a completely different bank. Don’t even get a debit card for it. Make it inconvenient to access. You want that money to be “out of sight, out of mind.” When you have to wait 24 hours to transfer the money back to your checking account, you eliminate impulse spending. You ensure that you only touch that money when it is a true emergency.

Build Your Financial Freedom

Building an emergency fund when you are broke is a slow, grinding process. There will be months when you can’t save a dime. There will be months where you have to dip into the fund to buy medicine or fix the car. That is okay. That is what the fund is for.

Don’t beat yourself up if the balance goes up and down. The victory isn’t in hitting a magic number; the victory is in the habit. It’s in proving to yourself that you have control over your financial destiny, even if it’s just five dollars at a time. Keep going. You are building freedom.