Emergency Funds - How useful can they be? | Share your experiences!

The biggest lesson I learnt form my parents even as a child is the art of saving and investing. I still have my piggy bank that i used as a child and now i have passed it onto my 5 year old son. I used to save from an age of 4 or 5 and until now. I worked for a while before marriage and even after and now I am taking a break to spend time with my children. My years of saving is coming of use now for the kids' education and for my own expenses. We make sure we invest and monitor our investments regularly and we did set up emergency fund for the education and other expenses after marriage.