Could you survive a financial emergency like a forest fire?

Q: My heart goes out to the tens of thousands of people in the interior of B.C. who have had to leave their homes because of the fires this year. While we haven’t been impacted by this we would be in rough shape if we were. We’ve managed to get our debt under control but have minimal savings to deal with a crisis like this. I think we need to start a savings plan to help us out in case we were hit by an emergency but my husband thinks we should pay off our debt first and then start a