I wonder why 3 months is seen as some kind of magic number. When I got laid off, I ended up unemployed for more than 3 years, and by the time I got another job I had total cash assets of $7.
It’s not a magic number. Some people are going to find it easier to find a new job, some will find it more difficult. The idea is to have some savings to draw upon. The number I heard is six to twelve months worth of living expenses. At one point I heard a “rule of thumb” that for every ten thousand in income, it would take one month to find a replacement job. So that someone earning $30,000 might take only two or three months while someone earning $120,000 will take longer.
Self-employed. I’d say I could go a couple years from non retirement and checking accounts at my current standard of living.
I’ve got enough money to last me the rest of my life.
Provided I die before Sunday.
I hope I didn’t come across as saying that a credit card was ideal. In fact, part of my point was that credit cards can be canceled or have reduced limits at the bank’s discretion. In the 2008 crisis, you couldn’t even count on the credit cards you already had.
If you’re not already saving, then credit cards are not a solution at all. If you don’t have money to save, you don’t have money to pay the card either.
But nobody gets $10,000 in savings overnight. For people who are saving but who haven’t hit their target for emergency funds, credit cards are a good part of the strategy to make sure you can deal with the unexpected.
I don’t feel comfy unless I have enough liquid assets to cover a major non-medical event. If something trashes my roof, or my car is totaled and for whatever reason I need to pay out of pocket for replacement, I want to know that’s not a problem.
That said, I’m currently comfy.
It’s half way through the month and I have half a months wages in the bank. :smack: I had two years of umemployment and now it’s been two years of catching back up again. My only debt is with the dentist though and I own my home. It’s far from finished though and very small but fortunately I love oatmeal!
After a year of working I got the fabled cushion of cash back, then someone slammed my car and I had to buy another one.
We can’t do more than number 3 under current arrangements. But it does bug me that, in the past, we were doing much better, and the economy was easier, but we have no savings. Unfortunately, I had no input with financial decisions at the time, nor would I have been all that helpful, being a child and not understanding money.
There was a study a few years ago that asked the question “If you had an emergency, could you come up with $2K in 30 days?”. One quarter of all Americans (according to the study) could not come up with it, and an additional 19% could get it only by selling possessions or taking payday loans.
Is “we” you and your mother?
We’ve got enough locked away to cover mortgage and essentials for about a year, I think. Because my husband is self-employed, he’s dependent on contracts being renewed - if ever he’s suddenly out of work, it could be a while before he can get into something else. So he’s always been putting money aside “in case.” I work too, and we were careful to get a mortgage rate that meant we wouldn’t lose the house immediately if we were stuck on only my salary for a while. We’d have to eat nothing but noodles and warm ourselves by a trash-can fire in the family room, but we’d have the house.
I’ve also been putting a ton of money aside in hopes of moving to part-time work for a while once we have kids. Since it took us a lot longer than we expected to get pregnant, that’s a pretty nice buffer.
Part of this is luck - we make decent salaries, we’re healthy, and we haven’t had any expensive disasters relating to the house - but part of it is effort, and I’m proud of us for it.
One thing I don’t have, though, is a pile of actual cash hidden in the house for emergencies. I’d need to go to a bank if I needed cash.
The notion of having thee paychecks saved seems like a bad way to put things. Do you think those who get paid monthly should have three months of income saved while those paid weekly only should have 3 weeks?
I have a couple year’s worth of paychecks saved as well as precious metal hard currency. I have enough stored food so that I wouldn’t need to visit a grocery store for over a year (if it was just myself. I’m working on it to support a couple others.). I have an electric well pump, but I also have a hand pump option.
I have propane heat, but I also have three wood heaters if need be. I also have two generators and 100+ gallons of fuel. I have solar panels for a little electrical storage.
My house is paid in full. Also, I just paid off the small balance that was on one of my credit cards. I have no debt.
No to mention a shit ton of ammunition and hand tools.
These are just the basics. There’s a lot more.
“The hardest thing about a zombie apocalypse will be pretending I’m not enjoying it.”
Just looked and I have about 6.5 months of pay saved up with an additional 18 months in my 401K.
Can I park in your driveway (providing you have one that is) in case something goes wrong?
I have two different entrance to this property. One goes over a bridge (which I own). That’s choke point one. The other runs through some swampy land, bordered by barbed wire on both sides. Choke point two.
If there was a SHTF scenario, you could approach, and if you had some usable skills, we could talk. Otherwise, I’d point you to the nearest town, give you a bottle of water and some MRE’s, and advise you to stick to the roads. My neighbors might not appreciate unannounced, backwoods visitors. And one of them is a better shot than I am.
I have skills! I have LOTS of skills! Pick me! Pick me!
Because it’s a manageable goal. Obviously it’s even better if you have enough in savings to support your lifestyle for three years, but even if you save 10% of your income that will take more than 25 years so it’s not a very practical advice.
We were living paycheck-to-paycheck until just over a year ago, when we opened our first savings account. Since then, Bank of America finlly merged its accounts geared toward government & military personnel with the rest of the bank so we’re able to automatically transfer from checking to savings, making setting aside emergency funds so much easier.
Nearly one paycheck had been saved when the bridge of my glasses snapped while cleaning them a couple days ago. Was able to order a new pair right away.
I also have a Thrift Savings Plan retirement account, into which a fraction of each paycheck is deposited with a matching percentage from the government, but there is no guaranteed access to the money contained therein until I actually, you know, retire.
When I was in the military they had a 10% overseas saving plan for you and they would automatically save back 10% of each check for you and with sub patrols being three months long it could add up.
Now I have Bank of America’s keep the change program where they round off each transaction to the nearest dollar and put the money in your savings account. When I log on it says that I saved $245 last year using keep the change … so I spent it 