Comments on: Getting Real About Your Emergency Fund – How Much is TOO Much?

By: Annie

Annie — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 02:35:36 +0000

Great post. When I do my monthly budget, I take all the necessary expenses, and compile those into one number that I track each month, showing me my actual “monthly expenses” that I would spend if I was unemployed. For instance, that number doesn’t include child care, clothing, entertainment, restaurants, dry cleaning or gifts money. Those are luxuries to which we say goodbye in circumstances of crises.

By: Aury (Thunderdrake)

Aury (Thunderdrake) — Tue, 25 May 2010 02:55:04 +0000

The most important aspect of an emergency fund I think is having something that’s extremely liquid.

I don’t save in a liquid fund, because emergencies only pressure me to find more financially intelligent strategems; to work my money brains, so to speak.

Furthermore, I invest pretty heavily into gold and silver, both which are one of the most liquid assets I can think of. Completely leaving the bull market out of the equation, all I would need to do is show up to one of the many dealers I’m around (I live in a metro) and sell it. It’ll be about 5-10% below the spot price, but worth it if I really needed to in an emergency circumstance. I could do something quite similar with certain stocks as well. So my assets are congruent with my emergency funds.

By: Victorino

Victorino — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:39:13 +0000

For me, it’s not the revenue or the income that I can’t in estimating emergency fund. When it comes to emergency cash – we should think of money getting out and not getting in. In other words, we think of expenses. Hence, set emergency fund at amount I will need to spend (regular and irregular expenses).

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Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:58:12 +0000

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By: Budgeting in the Fun Stuff

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:48:32 +0000

This made me think a bit.

I feel like risk diversification is comforting. We have a 401k and a Roth IRA invested in target date mutual funds, a Scottrade account invested in individual high dividend stocks, our smaller accounts (taxes, vacation, home and auto, etc) are with ING (1.1%), and our emergency fund is with Smarty Pig (2.01%).

Even though I see your point that leaving $30,000 laying around making less than 2% on average is wasteful, it does make me feel better to have that easily accessible.

By: tom

tom — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:05:13 +0000

caution – most 401k loans are required to be paid back when laid off or leaving an employer. Could subject you to a big hit with 10% penalty and taxes.

By: Kiber

Kiber — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:31:56 +0000

I think the key here is saving enough based on what kind of field you are looking for a job in.