How many months of cash savings should you have?

[Pieomyy]

This hasn't been a problem before but we are now moving house and we will have very little left in savings.

I previously had enough to cover 6 months of expenses.

I have between a year/18 months (fixed expenses + buffer) but I'm a single parent with no family etc who could help in a tight spot, so I'm overly cautious.

We go with always having 6 months minimum of expenses saved in a separate savings account which we never touch, that’s our emergency fund basically so it has that amount in and we leave it there.

We have separate savings accounts for the other bits like car/house issues, general saving etc and then another savings account for the fun things like holidays/christmas/trips etc.

It depends.

How secure is your income?
Could you manage one income if you lost one of your incomes?
What provision do you have for illness, job loss, death, change of circumstance, eg another child?

How quickly will you be able to save back the 6 months you had before? Is taking a larger mortgage and keeping back some of your savings an option that may be preferable if you would struggle without savings?

My savings are about 10K in an ISA but there are really there to cover my old house maintenance/repairs.

I would feel comfortable having six months of living expenses at least so that is my next goal as I hate my current job...

How long is a piece of string? Do you have good critical illness cover and other types of insurance? How long is your sick pay? How secure are your jobs? Depending on the answers to all of the above, I’d want anything from a couple of months to a year.