MoneyMaster

How big should your emergency fund be?

Enter what you'd still have to pay each month in a crisis, answer a few questions about your situation, and see an illustrative range of months and dollars from our editorial rule, with the reasoning shown factor by factor. It follows the method in our guide, Emergency fund: how much you need and where to keep it.

The figures below are a fictional example. Replace them with your own numbers, ideally from your spending review. Calculations run in your browser; nothing you enter is sent or saved. The result is a range to plan within, never a single right number. This is general information, not personal financial advice. See our privacy notice for site analytics.

Essential monthly costs

Keep only what you'd still have to pay in a crisis. Leave out holidays, eating out and most subscriptions.

Rent or mortgage, plus energy, water and similar bills.
Groceries, not eating out.
What it takes to get to work or interviews.
Premiums you'd keep paying, and the minimum due on each debt.
For example regular prescriptions.
Your situation

These are the factors from the guide. Each answer is marked “toward three months” or “toward six months or more”, and the result shows exactly how it moved the range.

Household income
Does anyone depend on your income?
Your work
Insurance
Other risks (tick any that apply)
What you have, and an optional addition
For example an insurance deductible, or an essential car or home repair. An optional addition, not part of the guide's method: added once on top of the monthly target. Enter 0 to follow the guide's method only.
Only money kept for emergencies, not savings earmarked for something else.

Use dollar amounts with a decimal point (for example, 45.50). US thousands separators such as 1,000.50 are accepted. Leave a line blank or enter 0 if it doesn't apply.

How this works

  • Your essential monthly cost is the sum of the five lines you enter, the same lines as Step 1 of our guide.
  • The guide's starting point is the common rule of thumb of three to six months of essential costs. It's a planning convention, not an official requirement: the guide notes that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau doesn't set a number.
  • The months rule is our editorial illustration of the guide's factors, not a formula from any authority. It starts from 3 to 6 months. Each “toward six months or more” factor you have (one income, self-employed or commission-based work, dependents, a volatile industry, health concerns) moves the illustration up. One such factor gives 4 to 6 months; two or more give 6 months or more. The guide doesn't put an upper figure on “or more”, so this calculator doesn't either.
  • If you have none of those factors and all four “toward three months” factors (stable job, two incomes, no dependents, good insurance), the illustration is the lower end: 3 to 4 months. With none of the “toward six” factors but not all four “toward three” factors, it stays at 3 to 6 months. Answers count as they fall: a stable job in a volatile industry counts once toward three months and once toward six.
  • The dollar range is the months times your essential monthly cost, plus your one-off costs once if you enter any; that lump sum is an optional addition, not part of the guide's method. The gap is the range minus what you've already saved, never below zero. Months already covered is what you've saved divided by your essential monthly cost.

What it doesn't cover

  • Which number inside the range is right for you. That depends on your situation; the range is a place to start, and this is general information, not personal financial advice.
  • Where to keep the money. The guide's Step 3 covers keeping it safe and reachable, and where short-term money goes compares the options.
  • A larger cash buffer for early retirement, which the guide treats as separate from, or in addition to, a normal emergency fund.
  • Interest, inflation or how long it will take to save the gap.

Spotted a problem with this calculator? Email hello [at] accel-media [dot] com (replace [at] with @ and [dot] with a period) with “Calculator” in the subject line. Please use invented numbers in any example.