Optimal Finance Daily · Thursday, September 17, 2026
Leo Babauta outlines six methods for building a financial cushion in a bank account. These include cutting expenses, creating a budget, leveraging an emergency fund, saving incrementally, using windfalls like tax refunds, and paying bills all at once.
“One, cut expenses. This might sound obvious, so I won't belabor the point. But if building a cushion in your account seems difficult, you'll probably need to cut out a few expenses to do it.”
“Three, emergency fund. I've talked about how to create an emergency fund. Follow those steps. Except that for the purposes of this article, you'll want to do one of two things.”
“Five, refund. If, however, you get a windfall, such as a tax refund or a bonus at work or a large payment from an extra project you did or something along those lines, instead of spending the money, you should leave it in the bank as your cushion.”