How many months of expenses do you keep in your emergency fund?

FabulousMrs.P

I have heard varying takes on emergency fund. I have heard 3-6 months expenses, 8 months, 1 year. What do you do?

We currently have about 6 months of emergency savings. That covers all of our current bills. Obviously we would cut expenses (no eating out, cable, etc.) if one of us was jobless and it would last longer. (We did this when my DD was out of work.) We had about 12 months expenses set aside originally but my husband has had 3 job layoffs over the last 6 years. The last time he was out of work for about 9 months. One of our  current goals is to put it back to 9 months again.

Just wondering how many months of expenses you have in an e-fund? Wasn't sure what most people do.

jessica490

We currently have about 4 months worth of bare bones expenses saved up, but we are working towards 8 over the next year or two

als1982

It's probably not the best plan, but we only have $1,000 set aside as a e-fund. We can afford all of our fixed expenses on just one of our salaries and at this point in our lives, we're more focused on maxing out our ROTH and 401k/b's, and paying off our student loans. Once we get closer to having children, we will shift focus to amassing more liquid savings.

mc0113

We originally had a goal of 6 months and just keep building on it. Currently, we have just over 14 months worth in our emergency fund. I'm planning on staying home after our baby due in December and we want to be overly prepared just in case DH were to lose his job or something were to come up. 

Mom987

When we got married we had 3 months in our own savings already.  Since then, we've contributed $200/month and we have 6.3 months now.  We have started contributing more because we want to save more money in general.  We've pulled from it once for new pipes in the house.

Xstatic3333

We're also at 4. I'm comfortable with that for now because our income is pretty evenly split, so unless we both got laid off at the same time it would last us for a while. We're also officially several months ahead on most of our biggest bills, which is another safety net of sorts.

I will want to raise it a bit once we're debt free or parents (parents is likely to come first). I might be comfortable with less if we weren't both in high-layoff potential fields-our jobs are connected to congressional funding choices. For now, though, I'd rather prioritize debt and/or retirement.

jlaOK

We have 6 months of bare bones and 4 months of our regular budget.  We don't plan on adding to the amount we have but will have separate savings for things we want/have to save up for (cars, vacations, furniture, etc.)

FabulousMrs.P

We also have some separate savings for cars, house stuff, vacations, and DD's college fund. Once we have the e-fund fully funded again, I want to start putting that monthly savings allotment  towards some home improvements (new windows, siding).

smbenevides1989

Right now, I'm at $1000 minimum. But to be fair, I currently live with my family (in an apartment in their basement) while we are paying down all our debt and save up for a house. Once we move, I will want to put in 3-6 months of our current lifestyle. We both make a decent pay that if one of us were to lose our job, we would have the flexibility to use one income while only taking out what is needed from the Efund.

formerlyGDaisy09

We've got 3 months of expenses, we're slowly building to 6 months, (we were really agressive in getting to 3 months). we probably have another month or so stashed in "allocated savings accounts" (vacation, home improvement, car expenses), that is money we could use in a true emergency.  

Between H and I we hold down 4 jobs, something catastrophic would have to happen to put us both out of work simultaneously (though it's always possible). 

once we reached 3 months I felt safe to relax a little with how agressively we were saving, still saving, but also focusing a little more on those "allocated accounts" and enjoying things like eating out a little more often. if one of us were put out of work our e-fund could probably be stretched to last 6-7 months, depending on the situation one of us could pick-up more hours at one of our jobs. 

MrsAshleyH10

We currently have 3 months worth of expenses. Right now our main focus is paying off non-mortgage debt.  Our goal before we TTC is at least 6 months worth of expenses.

vlagrl29

we have 3 months and I feel just fine with that.  We are self employed so the fear of being laid off doesn't apply to us.  We always are able to find work.  I also have a disability policy on my DH incase something happened to him to where he couldn't work.

lifeonthehill

We have $10,000 in the E-Fund which is more than 2 years worth. We are in a great situation where our bare bones budget is about $350 a month.

Our goal right now is to have $15,000 in the E-Fund by the time we start TTC to cover the baby budget. That will give us about 10 months.

jjbmstinco

Right now we are at 3 months saved up.  We would like to get to six months.  

cbee817

We have 9 months saved and that includes both girls staying in day care full time- that would probably change if one of us was out of work from 5 days to 2-3. DH has had a few layoffs other the past 7 years he has been a teacher (in our city school district)- he usually gets hired back by September or finds a long term job until he gets called back, so it hasn't been too bad. He hasn't been officially laid off this summer, but has no idea what school he'll be at for the fall. Because of this, we keep 9 months saved and keep the family on my health insurance. It gives us peace of mind now that we have the girls.

jlaOK

alyssa32713 said:

We have $10,000 in the E-Fund which is more than 2 years worth. We are in a great situation where our bare bones budget is about $350 a month.

Our goal right now is to have $15,000 in the E-Fund by the time we start TTC to cover the baby budget. That will give us about 10 months.

Holy moly.  How is your bare bones only $350 per month?

lifeonthehill

jlaOK said:

alyssa32713 said:

We have $10,000 in the E-Fund which is more than 2 years worth. We are in a great situation where our bare bones budget is about $350 a month.

Our goal right now is to have $15,000 in the E-Fund by the time we start TTC to cover the baby budget. That will give us about 10 months.

Holy moly.  How is your bare bones only $350 per month?

We work for a private school. We get all of our housing and utilities paid for 12 months a year and 3 meals a day Aug 25-May 31.

We pay for car ins. $53 and phone $140 and that is all we have for actual bills. We save a little each month for car registration once a year which is $92 and now plan to save $50 to help with food costs in the summer and personal care runs us about $15 a month.

We are incredibly lucky to have this situation we have paid off $25,000 in SL debt, gone on a $2,500 vacation and saved $8,000 into our E-Fund in 12 months with less than $42,000 in salary combined.

CuriousKiddosMama

We probably have close to 6 months with our new estimated expenses when we buy the house later this month. When we know what those expenses actually are we will try to save more if we need to to make sure that there is 6 months there. If something ever did happen with DH's job I know we can live off our pantry/deep freezer for 1-2 months and we will have close to that size pantry in the next house, so I just need to stock it up again. That helps me feel a bit more secure when we talk about emergency funds.

brij2006

We currently have $1k per Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover.  However, since getting pregnant we have saved our snowball each month.  So currently we have $7k.

Once we're debt free we aren't sure how many months we will build up to.  I want 6 months E-fund, H wants only 3.  Mostly because once we're debt free we can easily live our same lifestyle on just 1 income.  So even if 1 of us were to lose our job we would be just fine because there's no debt payments.

Wulfgar

We have roughly a $1000 in our "emergency fund" that is also our housing and car repair account.  We are still mainly focused on paying down debt and saving for retirement.  I have been unemployed before for short times and we are use to living below our means.  I am also a mechanical engineer that is one of in demand degrees.  My last lay-off was less than a month and I got decent pay raise out if it.

hoffse

We have 2 months right now.  But our expenses are affordable on a single income, so that's a built-in emergency fund for us.  Our jobs are fairly stable, but they are less stable than places that have actual tenure.

We are saving for a kitchen remodel next summer, and then I think we will be looking to boost ours to 6 months cash - with the intention that anything over that we start investing.  Having cash is important, but we don't want to keep TOO much around.

Xstatic3333

I think another good measure is to be able to replace your boiler and/or AC at a moments' notice, depending on which is essential where you live.

jlaOK

alyssa32713 said:

jlaOK said:

alyssa32713 said:

We have $10,000 in the E-Fund which is more than 2 years worth. We are in a great situation where our bare bones budget is about $350 a month.

Our goal right now is to have $15,000 in the E-Fund by the time we start TTC to cover the baby budget. That will give us about 10 months.

Holy moly.  How is your bare bones only $350 per month?

We work for a private school. We get all of our housing and utilities paid for 12 months a year and 3 meals a day Aug 25-May 31.

We pay for car ins. $53 and phone $140 and that is all we have for actual bills. We save a little each month for car registration once a year which is $92 and now plan to save $50 to help with food costs in the summer and personal care runs us about $15 a month.

We are incredibly lucky to have this situation we have paid off $25,000 in SL debt, gone on a $2,500 vacation and saved $8,000 into our E-Fund in 12 months with less than $42,000 in salary combined.

I see.  I have friends that did something similar.  It was great for them in the early days of their marriage because they were able to save so much.  Way to go!

SlurpeeLove

Currently working on getting up to $1k.  Not quite there yet, but should be before the end of the month.  After that, we're starting on snowballing our credit cards.  I can't wait!

I think I would be comfortable with having 6 months once I get there.  We have really stable jobs, so I'm not that concerned.  But with a baby in the future, probably TTC in the next year, it'll be better to have more.

short+sassy

I have a $1,000 e-fund and that's it. Unfortunately, my hubs DID lose his job just one month after we got married.  That was over one year ago and he still hasn't found another one (big sigh).

Although he makes substantially more money than I do when he is working, we keep our bills to a minimum and can survive (and save) on just my income.

I am also fortunate that I have multiple streams of income and can pay my bills as long as I have at least 2 out of  the 3 main ones going for me.  As such, I have been focusing more on paying my loans down (car, house, HELOC) rather than saving for a larger e-fund.

JoanE2012

We have about 1 year if both of us lost our jobs today.  If only one lost their job, we could still pay all the bills on one salary.   We'd probably be able to save too with unemployment and severence.  

als1982

For those of you with larger amounts of liquid savings, where are you keeping that?  And what interest rates have you been able to get?

jessica490

We just keep ours in a Capital One360 online account. The rate is .75% whoppee doo. It used to be up in the 4-7% or something like that back in the day but things have crashed since then like everything else.

jtmh2012

We keep ours in a Barclay's US online account. Currently at .90%.

brij2006

When we had a 6 months E-fund (pre-Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover) we kept it in a Mutual Fund.  We also understood the risk in doing so, and we kept $2k in our regular savings too.  We never expected it to earn crazy amounts of money, but all we cared what that our original E-fund was always in there.  So one year it made 12% and the next it made 6%.  That didn't matter to us as long as our original 6 months was in there. 

Mom987

brij2006 said:

When we had a 6 months E-fund (pre-Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover) we kept it in a Mutual Fund.  We also understood the risk in doing so, and we kept $2k in our regular savings too.  We never expected it to earn crazy amounts of money, but all we cared what that our original E-fund was always in there.  So one year it made 12% and the next it made 6%.  That didn't matter to us as long as our original 6 months was in there. 

We are very similar. We keep $1,100 minimum in checking and $1,000 minimum liquid savings.  Then, the 3-6 months is in mutual funds (we are at 6.3 months and continue to contribute monthly).