Emergency fund sizer
calculatorHow much cash should I actually hold?
Sizes a buffer from your income stability and dependents rather than a generic three-to-six month rule, and shows what each factor added.
Your situation
What you cannot stop paying: housing, food, transport, insurance, debt minimums.
The single biggest driver of the target.
Take-home pay minus essentials.
Your target
Sized from job-loss risk, not a generic rule of thumb.
- Target buffer
- $7,200
- You hold
- $6,000
- Still to save
- $1,200
3 months of essentials
2.5 months covered
1 month at your current rate
How the target was built
Each factor, and what it added or removed.
- Baseline of 3 months of essential spending.
Why this matters
The familiar “three to six months” is a midpoint, not an answer. What the buffer is actually insuring against is an income gap, so it should scale with how long that gap is likely to last and how many people depend on the income.
The return on this money is not its interest rate. It is the forced sale you never have to make. Income shocks and market falls are correlated — recessions cause both — so without a buffer you end up selling investments at the worst possible price, not through poor judgement but through necessity.
That is also why this feeds your risk capacity score. A funded buffer is what makes it safe to hold volatile assets at all.