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A new survey just published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 50 percent of U.S. respondents faced with a hypothetical emergency couldn’t come up with $2,000 within 30 days.

That’s not encouraging, America.

While funding an emergency account can seem like a low priority compared with paying monthly expenses, having access to cash sure beats having to put medical bills, car repairs, and other sudden, life-happens charges on a credit card. Then you’re not just contending with the emergency, but struggling to pay the balance and interest in the future as well.

Just something to keep in mind the next time you waver between saving and spending. Click here for our list of five situations where even a small emergency fund could save your hide.

There are hundreds of reasons that smart people put off creating an emergency fund: confidence that a job is secure, being in good health, maybe just feeling lucky. But can you guarantee that none of the following situations will ever apply to you? Probably not, so listen up and decide whether it’s worth the risk to go without.

1. Car trouble. If you backed into a fire hydrant or your timing belt snapped tomorrow, would you have the cash ready to fix your ride? Even if you lease a car (rarely a good idea to begin with), if you are over your allotted mileage when you trade your car in, you’ll need to pony up to cover the difference.
2. House maintenance. Summer is coming, and what you don’t want is to come up short when the central air dies in the middle of July. Even if you rent, having money to spare will help when it’s time to rent that U-Haul and move to another place. (At least, it’s a rare landlord who will return a deposit before the very end of the agreed-upon term.)
3. Job loss. The economy may be showing signs of recovery, but the job market is still shaky. Having a few months’ worth of expenses in the bank protects you from borrowing heavily on high-interest credit cards if you should lose your main (or only) source of income.
4. Medical care. Let’s say you have the good fortune to be in excellent health and have a health-insurance plan: You still need money on hand when medical issues arise. Ambulance rides aren’t always reimbursable, for example. And if you or your partner were to have a healthy baby while covered by a health plan, you could still get hit with out-of-pocket hospital delivery bills of more than $3,000. No insurance? Plan to pay at least triple that.
5. Peace of mind. Having a fat piggybank does wonders for letting you sleep at night. You can rest assured you’re prepared for whatever life might throw at you.

Convinced yet? Here are some ideas on how to get your fund started.

Buying an occasional lottery ticket for fun isn’t a terrible idea. At least if being virtually guaranteed to lose is your idea of a good time. After all, it’s pretty much like making a non-tax-deductible donation to the government, and if you only buy one or two every few weeks then you aren’t spending too much anyway.

But what happens if you’re lucky enough to win? The Seattle Times had an interesting article yesterday with tips on what to do if you pick the right numbers. (The Times’ tips also largely apply to those fortunate enough to receive a windfall inheritance.) Surprisingly, many of the tips are good advice even for people who aren’t absurdly lucky:

Keep an emergency fund:

“One of the first things we recommend has nothing to do with investing at all,” said Dan Keady, director of financial planning for TIAA-CREF, which helps teachers, professors and doctors manage their money. “It is creating an emergency fund of six to 12 months.”

Once you have an investment strategy, you don’t want to disrupt it by constantly pulling funds to cover out-of-the-ordinary expenses. An emergency fund, usually with cash in money markets and other conservative, easily accessed accounts, helps investors navigate the unexpected.

Invest your money into a balanced portfolio, even if that means adding risk:

Investing is an individual exercise. Everybody has different goals, time horizons and tolerance for risk. About the only thing that is constant is the need for diversification, putting money into several kinds of investments to hedge against losses in any one.

Coming in to money will change your lifestyle, tax bracket, and investment strategies overnight. And if you allow the exuberance of winning the lottery (or pain of losing a loved one) to cloud your judgment, you could lose it all. And as this Bankrate.com article points out, losing it all after winning big is not uncommon:

Missourian Janite Lee won $18 million in 1993. Lee was generous to a variety of causes, giving to politics, education and the community. But according to published reports, eight years after winning, Lee had filed for bankruptcy with only $700 left in two bank accounts and no cash on hand.

So if you’re dumb enough to play the lottery but lucky enough to win, first “time a timeout” and don’t make any rash decisions, and then hire the right professionals to make sure you don’t wind up penniless.