Emergency Fund

I read a lot of debt blogs / financial advice blogs and one thing that they all seem to recommend is an emergency fund.

I don't currently have an emergency fund... I have a savings account that has the princely sum of $54 in it at the moment, and a savings account that holds money allocated to bills, but that fund fills and empties in line with my bill cycle... although it does have a floating balance of around $1000 - $1500 normally. Perhaps that really is my emergency fund?

I'm not sure that I want to divert payments away from my debt, but perhaps it would be wise to put a more formal emergency fund in place... most sites seem to recommend $1000 and that would only take me three fortnights - a month and a half - if I put the extra $300 I am currently putting into debt repayment into the savings account instead.

Something to think about.