RetireJapan

If I told you you would lose a few million yen unless you can pay me about 1M yen right now, would you consider that an emergency? Because if the return is guaranteed, it's an equivalent situation*. Anyway, that's why I prefer to call it my "FU fund" rather than an emergency fund. It's money that's there to give you options.

*normally I would suspect this sort of situation to be a scam. However, in this case I knew it was geniune.

Well now I'm curious what this "guaranteed" investment opportunity was, especially one that also guaranteed a huge loss unless you stump up cash. You're definitely right in saying it sounds like a scam.

Sorry I don't think I was clear. There wasn't any chance of loss. I meant that if the return is guaranteed, then *not* taking the opportunity is equivalent to a loss.

In this case it was maturing stock options, the right to buy stock at below market value, which you then sell at market value for profit.