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?

100k.
I honestly never thought i would have that much money as we had years if living on our knees and bailiffs knocking on our door.
Once we got straight i hoarded money and became obsessed with not wanting to end up the way we did, even though it was through no fault of ours.

I try to keep roughly 20k in an instant access account. I know it is rubbish interest and would have made me money over the years in an ISA, but I am self employed and sometimes need to dip into it heavily if payment is late or work dries up for a while, then pay back in when the work floods in.

And I get massive peace of mind from knowing I can access it immediately in an emergency or for happy occasions. Since having this back up fund I have stopped worrying about money. I used to worry about it all the time.

we have 6 months salary for one of us or 3 month salary for both. I’d like a little more but also want to balance living now. I’m in my 40s and now come across people in their 50s and early 60s dying before even getting to retirement so saving it all for then feels like a bad plan. If I live to 96 I might regret my choices but I am trying to get the right balance. Sitting on 100k in savings but never going on holidays wouldn’t feel right for me, but others would view that differently.

I ment that my financial stuff is arranged so that I should not have over 15k in assets when I die. In most cases, in these circumstances, an estate will not have to go through probate. As long as you have a straightforward will (i do, all goes to my only adult child) don't own any property (i dont) and the will is not contested, then going through probate (which can take over a year) shouldn't be necessary.

12 months salary and expenses are in cash savings for ‘emergency’ money. We also have some s&s ISA’s which could be drawn on that we had started to save for retirement. (Who knows what they will be worth!)

We are 48, and once crippling childcare bills stopped a few years ago we prioritised as much as we could to build up these savings. Feel very fortunate to have been able to do this - especially with the shit show that is going down with the economy.

We have done Dave Ramsey, so £1000 instant access, sinking funds for all yearly bills and mortgage paid off now.

Our aim is to have an emergency fund of 6 months salaries. It’ll take a while to save it though.

I have £4.3k. I earn £30k. i’m never gonna be saving some of the amounts on herein current climate. It would cover the mortgage and bills for 4/5 months ( low mortgage) However i get sick pay full for 6 months too.I have other savings for day to day house/ holidays/ decor etc. That could be dipped into if needed in emergency too i guess.

Just to say all those with an emergency fund you are doing the right thing, ours was a life saver when DH lost his health and had 2.5 years not working. He had four months of that time in hospital. He now manages part time but is in a lot of pain by the end of day, and utterly exhausted.

If you pay your entire savings to your mortgage to reduce the balance and THEN shit hits the fan, that past lump sum won't stop the repossession when you can no longer meet the ongoing repayment obligations.

Even in a 'my mortgage is 6%, my savings are 4%' situation, it's still better to keep at least several months mortgage payments to the side to give you a grace period.

Not typical, I’ve got 10 years plus pension but I’m hoping to quit working altogether within 5 years

We just have savings and now we are mortgage free( in our 50s) it’s about £80k but that’s spread over shares, premium bonds, ISAs. It’s not looking so good thanks to Trump at the mo so I’m trying not to look until things calm down.

I had 6 months expenses but it’s down a bit now thanks to trump (about 2/3 in ISA, 1/3 in premium bonds). I’ve only just reached that and childcare costs are about to reduce once DC2 starts school in September, so will start saving more to overpay the mortgage (which is huge).

20k. Used to be lower (5k) but then we had a crisis few months, car broke down then found out we needed a new roof and shortly after a new boiler.

I have an emergency cash stash of £30. I'm going to spend it today on having my hair cut for the first time in 18m. If I pull it straight, it's bum floss. So, my emergency fund will be zero, this time tomorrow. I have no savings.

A year's expenses. I was just out of work for 4 months but luckily the redundancy pay (carefully spent) covered that. Realistically it can take 4-6 months at least to get a job.

A couple of hundred in cash and access to about £22k on credit cards if there was an emergency big enough to warrant it. Not sure how I’d pay it back however!

The reality of thee type of posts are that replies are from people who want to tell you how much they have rather than how much they haven't.

Across the board the majority of peopleare likely to fall firmly in the haven'ts

A lot of mortgages allow you to use overpayments to pay the mortgage if necessary. You can never withdraw overpayments but they can often be used in this way

Here is a link to Forbes with data on savings, age is very relevant here

https://www.forbes.com/uk/advisor/savings/average-savings-by-age-in-uk/

Always outliers at every age range.

Nothing.. never have..

DH had been through redundancy multiple times and only once with a package. I couldn’t face the uncertainty and worry of going through that again without knowing we could manage for at least 6 months.

I don't really. I put money aside for car servicing and insurance, that's currently 2k, but it'll all be spent by summer (I have a teen on my insurance). Then I'll have to start saving for next year's insurance, MOT etc.

Just shy of £35K between the 2 of us. Not masses, but if we cut down on our non essentials, holidays etc, could cover our bills for a year as we can be frugal if needed.

We have around £9k which is 3 months total income (two adults). Keep aiming for 6 months but something usually knocks us back when we get half way there. My job is pretty secure and I’m the higher earner, husband less money and less secure so at least we have that the right way round.