How much money do you keep liquid in your emergency fund? Just curious. My wife and I are financially very different. If it were up to me, I'd keep about half of one of our annual salaries liquid. If it were up to her, she'd have at least a full year's worth of our combined annual salary liquid. Right now, we're in the process of looking for a new house, and then, afterwards to start moving some assets to make it less liquid in order to have our money work for us. There's just a question of how much we'd want to spend and put down on a house because of how much our philosophies differ. Curious to hear how others feel. I'll also talk to my financial adviser about this...
I have heard 3-6 months of expenses, in case of job loss or injury. Adjust as needed for risk and comfort. Here is a link to a Motley Fool article : https://www.fool.com/investing/gene...fund-guidelines-do-you-really-need-3-6-o.aspx
And yet most of us don't even have 1 day of water on hand, myself included. Which means we die in 3-5 days.
6 months is reasonable. 1 year is safer these days. And then bail quickly after that and live with your parents to save money before you drain it.
During the dot com collapse and the financial/housing collapse, there were people without jobs for over a year, and in many cases, much longer... in some cases, times were so tough, some even changed occupations in that time. If you can save at least one year's worth of expenses, I'd do it. I'd listen to your financial adviser (hopefully they have a clue) since they know more about your finances than we do. Now for idiotic and inane opinions on basketball based upon inside knowledge we don't have? We're your people.
I would aim to have at least enough to cover essential expenses for 2 years. In other words, assume a "worst case" scenario (let's say something like things go wrong for a year - disaster for a year is major suckage), and then double it to be safe. None of this is an issue for us, thank goodness, but I remember when it was.
Does this include your cash savings? Because from the numbers y'all are throwing, it seems like yalls expectation is pretty low. I'm looking at at least having 50k in cash, besides your work 401k and a Roth IRA.
a consultant once advised me 4 months worth of cash stashed away. how long would need to save a year's worth of money? i have at least 2 months of reserves right now, if the missus and i live efficiently.
This. I know it may sound like hyperbole, but I'm an actual use case. I was out of work for 18 months when the dot com collapse happened. Luckily I was 2 years of expenses liquid. I eventually had to switch careers altogether to get a job. I learned a lot from that experience and now my wife and I are several years liquid, not to mention our longtime annually maxed out 401ks on top of that, which we'd never tap into unless the absolutely unthinkable occurs.
Saving 6 months of salary vs 1 year isn't a huge difference. Both show a great consciousness of thinking ahead and being prepared. Maybe you guys should meet in the middle and do 9 months.
It really depends on how long it would take to find a new job. If you are young and your profession has plenty of opportunities, you should be able to find a job pretty quickly. As you get older and your income rises, there will likely be less opportunities. Many people plan on working until their retirement year or later, but have to retire earlier due to a lack of opportunities. We have also seen three generational economic downturns in the last 20 years (.com bust, 911, and the Great Recession). These downturns can easily extend your time between jobs. Your emergency funds needs to cover the worst case scenarios. If you are young, you might need about 9 months. If you are 60, you might need about 3-4 years.
