There is a common predicament that many people find themselves I’m. Save money or pay off debt. While this question can be coolly answered by crunching the numbers, it’s not really a question that that cool cold numbers can answer. This like many other financial questions is one that is really about precedent and emotion rather than the numbers.

Like most people I have debt. Luckily, my debt is good debt. Mortgages and student loans. However I am very aware that many people are burdened by not so good debt. Credit cards and even worse- pay day loans. These loans often sport egregious interest rates. Crunching the numbers almost always will tell you to pay that kind of debt first.

It’s a much easier argument to make that I should invest excess money instead of paying off either my mortgage or my student loans. The interest rates on those are less than 5.5% without even considering any tax advantages. There’s no guarantee that I could do better in the “Market,” but there’s a good chance that I can - just not these last few months. However, when you’re paying 20% on a credit card, it’s highly unlikely that you can earn any kind of return close to what you’re paying let alone beat that.

So why would you ever sock money away into a emergency fund, or into a savings account when you have credit card debt? I actually think for many people it does make sense, maybe not logical sense, but emotional sense. Just as studies have shown that people would be better off being auto-enrolled into 401ks, I believe the sooner someone is able to enroll into a savings plan the better off they are. The key is creating a savings, mutual fund, or brokerage account and turning the spigot a half turn. The savings should be more symbolic than anything else. It wouldn’t make sense to save $1000 a month and then making the minimum payment on the credit card payment. But for someone is doing a good job paying off the credit card in excess of the minimum, it can make sense to stash $25 away a month toward an emergency fund.