To ask how much you keep in your emergency fund?

[ByCheekyDreamer]

Some say 3-6 months’ expenses, others aim for a year or more. What’s actually realistic?

£200 in the house, hidden away, and £26,000 in an ISA that is added to yearly by anywhere from £2000-£4000.

15 to 20 years depending on inflation, we are older though at about 60.

Surely what's realistic depends on your circumstances?

If you can't get through the month you're not going to be able to save thousands as a safety net.

Plus what is appropriate depends on your stage of life, income security etc?

If you're a contractor you need a lot more than a public sector worker with job security and good sickness benefits.

I've got 7k.in the emergency fund

Emergency fund - 1170
car fund (for all car related expenses) - 35.67 (this was more but I had to send the car to the mechanic)
long term savings- 22,200.

Lol. I had 10 grand 3 years ago but COL and a low paid job have put paid to that. I'm now happy if I have a tenner left before payday.

Dont know, you will have to ask my dad as he is my emergency fund.

Basically its a trade off, I dont work anywhere near as much as I could to be a carer for my parents so I have zero savings. So when the washing machine breaks (as it did a couple of weeks ago) he pays for a new one for me. Its not an official agreement as such but when he was starting to really struggle and my mother has an unexpected nasty diagnosis, that was what he offered. To be honest, I would have done it anyway but there have been a couple of occasions where it really has done me a favour as my meagre earnings, plus carers allowance and UC really doesnt add up to much.

ETA - Probably less of an issue as I no longer have a mortgage to pay, so that makes a massive difference I think.

Six months’ fixed expenses. Other savings elsewhere but they aren’t all immediately accessible.

We've got £25k in our joint account and I've got £30k in a savings account from before we started pooling our money.
So we could both be out of work for 2 years if we needed to in a crisis, as we have very low outgoings.

My emergency fund consists of any spare credit limit I might have on credit cards.

6 months of expenses but don't think it's enough. Worry about money all the time and would ideally like 2 years worth stashed away.

£300

We have a number of savings pots for different emergencies...

500 cash at home, just in case.
4k for the dog "insurance"
12k for the kids (uni students) just in case
15k in premium bonds for any long term issues.
We have low outgoings so would last a couple of years.

We’ve always had an entire year’s worth minimum, but we both lost a parent as children, so are generally on the extremely cautious side with money and the stability of our home for our children as a result.

I don't want to derail the thread, but what does 'keeping it under probate' mean. Do you mean the inheritance tax level?

Approx £60k - but this is instead of having a lower mortgage (savings rate is same as mortgage rate so I figure better to have cash available if needs be).

Emergency fund is 10k.
Anything after that goes into my main savings account which is around £25k.

This confuses me. Why not just use that money to reduce your mortgage? You'd save a fortune on interest.

Enough to cover 5 months of living expenses in an easy access account. This is separate from my 'proper' savings. Lucky enough to have paid off the mortgage which has reduced the expenses considerably.

I’m recently retired so no longer need an emergency fund . Mortgages paid off , 2 x dogs that aren’t insured so £60k in an account for them , there’s nothing else that could go wrong that I couldn’t pay for . When I was working I had the obligatory 6mths expenses plus private healthcare and redundancy / mortgage protection / critical illness cover .

This confuses me too.

Not all of it obviously, but as much of the mortgage portion of the savings that you are allowed per year to overpay (I know many have 10% limits). Would make the mortgage term much shorter too!

ETA - thinking about it, that plan only works if you are within the last 2 years or so of your mortgage......otherwise yes you have paid off a large amount BUT you still have to make the payments every month until it is paid off, and no longer have the savings to do it.

So maybe our logic isnt as good as we initially thought it was!

It’s all planned for. On 1.6% and get 6% in some of my savings accounts so it makes no sense to pay off the mortgage when I earn more interest than the benefit of paying some of the mortgage off would bring. May as well get free money while I’m paying very low interest anyway. I overpay on the mortgage too to reduce capital.

Immediate access to 6 months worth of my current income. It used to be 3 months pre-kids but now I like the additional security.

I used to have a year's worth after separating from ex, selling the house and buying a modest flat so I would have some spare. But over the 10 years since then as a single mum I've had to eat into it (self-employed, unexpected bills, school trips etc) and now only have a few grand. I REALLY try to build it back up but CoL combined with stagnating pay makes that v hard. I save, but then end up having to use it.

On the plus side I have a good amount of equity in the flat and several pensions, they're not great but If I was really desperate I could downsize. Don't like not having more savings though.

I have around £200 in savings.
I have around £150 in cash stashed in my underwear drawer and in various books.
I have an artwork worth around £15K but that would have to be sold through auction, Sothebys, etc so after fees, it would be worth much less.