Nice piece Ben, as usual :). Also as usual ;), I have a few comments.

• This, “Don’t tell me having an emergency fund is a priority if you have not budgeted monthly contributions to build up your emergency fund” is golden!
• The 3–6 months of expenses in an emergency fund is generic advice. As I describe in this piece, what someone needs who’s e.g. a single parent with no family support who’s working gigs is far different than what a 20-something needs who has a steady salary, supportive parents, and no dependents.
• Next, a quick hack to figure out your average spending: take all your account statements (checking, savings, credit cards) and see how much you had minus how much you owed a year ago and compare to the same today. This can be as simple as adding up two sets of three numbers and subtracting one from the other. Next, add all the income that went into your checking account in this year. That could be as simple as adding up 12 salaries’ net to the previous number. Finally, subtract anything you sent from your checking and/or savings to investments. What you have left is what you spent in the last 12 months, without having to sum up thousands of transactions. Here’s a piece that walks you through this 4-step hack.
• Finally, to make your case stronger that you should be setting money aside in an emergency fund even if you’re in debt, consider the following scenario. You’re paying down debt on a credit card and an auto loan. You decide to throw in every penny possible to pay off the auto loan faster, so you don’t lose your car if you hit a financial bump. You’ve been doing this for over a year, have paid down an extra $2000 of that debt, and have it down to $3000 which should be paid off in less than a year. Suddenly, you have a (very minor) medical emergency and have to pay $1500 in hospital bills. Poof! There goes the money for your next 5 auto loan payments, and bye bye car. However, say you put the extra $2000 into an emergency fund. Your auto loan balance is still over $5000, but now you can pay the hospital bills without losing your car.