Host Tess Vigeland, Sr. Producer Paddy and Jill Schlesinger of CBS MoneyWatch come together this week to discuss the importance of the emergency fund. We know that we here at Marketplace Money are a little bit obsessed about emergency funds, but haven’t the last few years driven home how important one is?

Jill talks about how to calculate how much you should save and how to save it.

“The emergency reserve is a boring, safe place, where you can access your funds if — god forbid — something changes in your life,” Schlesinger said. So no moving your emergency fund into a perhaps more sexy, but risky stock market. That’s not the point!

And this week’s caller ended up being a model saver! Take a listen to the audio above on how to build up your emergency savings — among others!