Comments on: The emergency fund

By: LAL

LAL — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:36:58 +0000

I wonder, is it worth investing the EF?

By: Pat

Pat — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:14:09 +0000

Very timely topic for me! I was just thinking about how much we need. Currently, we have more about 5 months of emergency funds at our “full of fat” lifestyle. But bare bones, we could stretch that to probably 8 months at least. On top of that, both my wife and I almost certainly wont lose our jobs at the same time. I am very secure in my job and my wife is pretty secure as well. All told, losing one job and stretching, we could probably make it 1 year.

Oops… Like you say, it’s probably better to start paying off that $35K in student loans… I’d better get on that.

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:51:05 +0000

My husband and I have about three months worth in our emergency fund right now. We could live our current lifestyle, if we both lost our jobs, for three months.

More likely, however, is that we’d only lose one income, therefore making our three month fund more of a six month fund. And we’d probably downgrade our lifestyle and cut some fat, so it could be more of an eight month emergency fund if only one of us lost income. Even longer if we collected some unemployment.

That said, I would like to add to the fund and start a separate annual expense fund like you describe. We plan to do that once the rest of our credit card debt is paid off, hopefully in a few months.

By: Stacey

Stacey — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:58:46 +0000

In Pennsylvania, the unemployed are now eligible for up to 99 months of unemployment pay. That’s right, almost 2 years. It’s crazy.

Locally, there are a lot of part-time and temporary jobs available that could fill the gap if one spouse lost their income. We’re pretty comfortable with our “bare-bones” six month EF.

By: Meg

Meg — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:32:41 +0000

It does depend on the situation, but I don’t think 3 months is enough for most people. It is a VERY rough job market out there and some people are finding that it takes months to find ANY job, not even one that pays their expenses, let alone one that they like. And if they do, they might have to move, which can be expensive, too.

That said, we have only about 3 months emergency fund right now as we’re trying to hurry up and pay down debt. I just hope that my husband’s job is as secure as we think it is because we know it’s hard to find jobs like his. When our debt is gone, though, I look forward to having a one year emergency fund. Fortunately, that’s a lot easier to do now that we’ve cut our expenses back significantly over the past year or two.