What is it, 3-6 months of living expenses? We had just under 3 months in our emergency fund but we unfortunately had to use it, so we are starting over. Our goal this year is to get that back up and then work on debt pay off and regular savings, it's tough!
Do you have your emergency fund where it needs to be? Any tips for getting there and beyond?
eggplant / 11861 posts
We have a good chunck maybe 5 months?! We had close to 10 but when I was in ML my FMLA wasn't what I expected and we had to dip in...
I want to build it up a little more , but life happens!
I feel as long as you make an effort it is all you can do, life happens and I was thankful we had it
grapefruit / 4361 posts
In the past 6 years of marriage, we've always contributed to an emergency fund with a goal of 3 months of living expenses (which would be able to be stretched to 6 months, if one of us was still working during this emegency). We've met our goal a couple of times, but we've had to use it for an unexpected tax bill, miscarriage/ER bills, and to pay off a student loan in order to qualify for a mortgage (not an emergency, but yeah.)
Contributions to our emergency fund are part of our budget, and are done through automatic monthly transfers. Generally, we try to set aside 1 month of living expenses per year. Theoretically we wouldn't stop at 3, but that's usually when we've needed to use it.
pomegranate / 3392 posts
We just lost a big chunk of it this month, because we had to unexpectedly replace our furnace 
Back to (almost) square one!
papaya / 10570 posts
We did have, but we spent it on a wedding and buying a house. Then we built it back up (5 months worth) but are about to spend it on a kitchen remodel, starting next week. Eek.
GOLD / wonderful apricot / 22276 posts
@FaithFertility: @DesertDreams88: @MoonMoon: @Cherrybee: thanks for chiming in! I'm curious, do you have another savings on top of the emergency fund, or are they one in the same?
grapefruit / 4187 posts
Yes, about 7-8 months if we suddenly both weren't able to work. If one of us was still working we would only need it for unexpected big expenses like house/car repairs, etc.
grapefruit / 4321 posts
We just have an investment account where we keep at least 3 months of expenses in cash. The rest of the account is in stocks and mutual funds which can be liquidated in three days if we had a major emergency.
eggplant / 11861 posts
@Bao: DH has a CD from an accident/settlement that is our savings, if not for that it would be one in the same!
cantaloupe / 6751 posts
Yes , emergency fund that has about 4-5 months of living expenses.
It's separate from our other savings, but we have several different savings accounts to keep things separate (emergency fund, vacation fund, etc)
papaya / 10343 posts
It's about 3 months of living expenses if both of us had no income. We are able to squeak by on one income or the other if just one of us was without work. (Which I'm confident about because I lost my job and took over 1.5 years to find a new job and we never had to dip into it).
cantaloupe / 6131 posts
We do a Dave Ramsey style thing where while we are paying down our student loans, we keep a small emergency fund. Dave recommends $1000 but before we bought a house we always kept it at $2000 because the most likely and largest expense we could think of was a huge car repair (DH used to drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee with AWD). Now that we are homeowners we should probably beef that up a little more but we have a house and roof warranty for another 6 months and our house came with a virtually new HVAC so we are going to wait a few more months (during which my loans should be paid off.) We went without my income for 9 months last year while on leave and we were able to do fine on DH's income so I suspect it will be the same while on leave for DS2. Our health insurance has little to no extra fees aside from small co-pays for visits and RXs that we charge to our FSA, so that helps a ton.
Once DH's student loans are gone in a few years we will shoot for 6 months of expenses, since that's when both our long term disability policies would kick in. I have secure employment with the state and DH has his own practice while teaching at a college so disability is the more likely cause of not working than unemployment.
pomelo / 5509 posts
Is an emergency fund supposed to be different from your general savings account?
pear / 1547 posts
We do. It's probably about 3 mo worth if we were pretty careful with things (and stopped extra loan payments) but definitely not x3 of our regular monthly income.
honeydew / 7303 posts
We are down to about 3 months expenses after I had to take almost a month off of work for an unexpected surgery. I already took 3 months off unpaid for maternity leave as well so I only worked about 8 months this year! Luckily I saved almost enough to cover my maternity leave so we did t have to use the emergency fund.
Our emergency fund is a separate savings account. We also have accounts for vacation, large purchases, kids. Then the truly untouchable money in our retirement accounts.
Before taking so much time off of work, I had our savings deducted automatically every time we were paid. Now we are in survival mode until our normal income starts back up. No extra savings at the moment.
grapefruit / 4321 posts
@IRunForFun: it doesn't have to be separate but it should be cash. You don't want your emergency fund to be invested and then be forced to liquidate it at a bad time if you need money when the market is doing poorly.
cantaloupe / 6131 posts
@IRunForFun: we have done it both ways - either with a separate savings account or just keeping an agreed upon amount in checking at all times as a floor, but with interest rates getting better, having a separate account makes more sense.
grapefruit / 4988 posts
Yes, we have one. It would cover 4-5 months of expenses. It's separate from our savings account. We never touch the emergency fund.
grapefruit / 4089 posts
We've got enough in savings (separate from investments/retirement fund) to see us through maybe a year of living expenses if we were careful.
pomelo / 5509 posts
We have enough in savings for probably 6 to 8 months of living expenses plus about a 2-month cushion in checking.
pineapple / 12053 posts
yes, we do. it's about 3 months of our current take home pay, but we could easily push it to 6 months of living expenses if both of us were unemployed.
GOLD / eggplant / 11517 posts
Yes! We have been following Dave Ramsey's plan and are nearly done with saving up our emergency fund. He recommends 3-6, but we are paranoid people, so we are saving a full 6 months which would cover all bills/expenses if we both lost our income at the same time.
We've had so much success following his program so far!
grapefruit / 4361 posts
@bao: yes, our emegency fund is separate from savings. It's changed over the years, but normally we have:
- Joint checking account
- Sinking fund (for irregular but anticipated expenses)
- Savings fund with a purpose (car, house, etc)
- Emergency fund
We have no retirement savings because we have pensions that take 11% of our income, plus our priority is paying down our 50K of student loans.
pomelo / 5093 posts
6 months. Never before been touched. We're just about to draw a little of it to pay an huge and unexpected tax bill, so all of the next month or two's savings will go towards rebuilding it.
This is a separate account that we never access. I built it from a big tax refund a few years ago. We'd had a decent amount in savings, and then we suddenly had to make a huge an unexpected repair to our house. It totally drained our savings and most of our checking, and we had a very tight and scary 6 weeks afterwards. After that I made sure that we had a big chunk set aside in case of another big unexpected thing.
kiwi / 735 posts
We have one but we recently dipped into it. Our goal this year is to get it back to at least 3 months of expenses. We are following Dave Ramsey's plan.
pineapple / 12793 posts
We have a couple years. DH started a business last year and we wanted to make sure we were covered in case it failed.
pomegranate / 3604 posts
We did, but we had to draw on it this summer/fall. One of my priorities this year is to build it back to where it was.
persimmon / 1188 posts
We only have about 3 months of expenses but that's because we bought a house last year and put even more into it. I'd like to have a lot more so we're working on it. My in laws would also lend us money as needed so that's a bit of a safety net that we don't plan to ever use.
eggplant / 11716 posts
Yes. Enough for a year or so. But I'm not going to lie-- it's all money Dh saved prior to our marriage. I suck at saving large quantities of money. 
Earlier this year, he put quite a bit into the house I bought before marriage. Luckily, the market is good in that area and I was able to pay it all back into his savings when I sold.
nectarine / 2018 posts
We have a separate account that would cover us for about a year. It's more than most find necessary but since I stay at home with DD we wanted to be sure that we would be okay if DH lost his job.
pomegranate / 3350 posts
Yes. It's at about 6 months expenses now. We had to dip in for some medical bills early last year because DS had surgery and we have a high deductible plan and not enough in the HSA at that point.
grapefruit / 4355 posts
We don't have a separate amount from our general savings. And I also have mutual funds that we could quickly and easily liquidate if needed.
cantaloupe / 6669 posts
Yes, it is at about 2 months of regular income right now. We want to get it to 3 months + but we are working on paying off debt first.
wonderful pea / 17279 posts
We use a stock account that we can quickly liquidate as our emergency fund. It's about 2.5 months of gross income. That would likely last us 4-5 months of expenses, but if we cut back on must-fund line items like retirement the emergency fund may take us further.
hostess / wonderful persimmon / 25556 posts
Yes. It's 6 months. We have separate savings accounts, too though.
grapefruit / 4418 posts
We like to have 1 year salary for each of us but We only have about 9 months right now and will prob decrease since we are buying s second home soon. DH has had a few episodes of lay offs in the past and so it's super important to us even though we can get by on one salary if we have to.
I'll add it's easy for us to build it because DH is in sales so all his commission gets dumped into savings. I couldn't do it with just my salary of would take forever!!
hostess / wonderful grape / 20803 posts
To help save, could you do something like take $ out of the paycheck automatically so that you won't miss it?
blogger / honeydew / 7081 posts
We have an emergency fund that is about 2 months of living expenses. We'd like it to be higher, but we had over $1000 in unexpected car repairs (boo), so we'll build it up again when I go back to work.
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