They say you shouldn’t get emotional about money, but ignoring that advice helped me save $35,000 in a year and a half

“To build my savings, I needed to have a strong reason to diligently stash away all of my extra funds — and that reason was my partner.”

I was in a long-distance relationship and wanted to move to my partner’s city, but I didn’t feel like I could do that until I’d saved enough to cover my expenses for a full year if I couldn’t find a job. Photo: Boonchai Wedmakawand/Getty Images

By Sarah Sharkey

Let’s be honest, saving money can be hard work. Putting away a year’s worth of expenses meant working long hours, staying flexible, and avoiding extra costs wherever possible.

It took me over a year and a half to meet my savings goal, but I was able to save $35,000 to serve as my emergency fund. Here’s how I did it.

Why I built these savings

First of all, to build my savings, I needed to have a strong reason to diligently stash away all of my extra funds — and that reason was my partner. We had been in a long-distance relationship for years and I wanted to move to the city where he lived, but to do that, I needed to build up enough savings to cover my expenses for a year if I couldn’t quickly find a new job.

My partner and I started dating while in college, even though we lived hours away from each other. After graduation, I accepted a job in my college town that paid a respectable $15.50 per hour. However, the job meant that I was trapped in that city…