What is an Emergency?

Save an emergency fund!  This is one of the most important first steps to getting control of your finances and stopping the cycle of reaching for the credit card when things get tough.  I even made saving an emergency fund Millionaire Rule #5.  I've scraped together almost $2 grand for my emergency fund over the last year, and that is great progress. Right?  

My problem today is that my car needs work, but I don't want to raid my emergency fund.  The $400 repair bill seems small enough for me to pay out of my regular living money, but history has shown that I won't tighten the belt enough.  I know that if I pay this bill out of normal income I will run out of money by the end of the month.  When the money runs out the immediate response will be to reach for the credit card for groceries and gasoline that I've got to have.  Spending more on credit is exactly what I shouldn't do.

However, I would almost rather seem my credit card balance go up than see my emergency fund balance go down...   I know it is crazy talk, but it took so much to build it up I don't want to use it!  I like knowing if a real emergency happens I have the money to cover it.  I also like looking at the nice balance and watch it continue to grow each month.

So here is the real question, how do you decide what constitutes an "emergency" and justifies raiding savings?  For example, I needed to buy two pairs of shoes (one for the gym and one for work) for which I hadn't planned.  Is that $100 expense for shoes enough to raid the emergency fund?  What about redoing the brakes on the car? What about text books for my wife?  It seems there is a possible emergency that doesn't fit into the budget every month.  Ugh.

In the last two months I've spent significant sums on these unplanned expenses.  Fortunately I've also had a significant inflow of cash from selling unused items on eBay that has covered these expenses.  That extra money was originally earmarked for paying off debt.  Instead of paying down my debt I chose to pay the bills and let my balances tread water.  This seems like a decent trade off, but in reality is is the same as if I had paid down the debt and later (when money got tight again) run the credit card right back up.  That scenario may have actually saved me some interest now that I think about it.

I'm a little confused about how I should be using my emergency fund, and a little frustrated with all of the unbudgeted expenses that have popped up.  Please leave some comments to let me know what you think.  Thanks for reading.