Make room for what matters
Emergency Fund Planner
An emergency fund is measured in months of essential spending, not as a round number. Enter what you must pay each month and what you have set aside, and this planner shows how long you are covered for and what filling the gap would take.
Enter your details below. Your estimate updates as you explore, and you can check the calculation behind it.
Your planning workspaceMake the numbers yours.
Start with the defaults, then adjust your details.
View your estimateHow this planner works
Anyone who wants a specific figure to aim at rather than a vague sense that they should have savings. It is also useful for checking whether a fund you already hold is actually the right size, which is a question most people never revisit after setting it.
Method
Months of essential spending
The fund is sized as a multiple of what you must pay monthly, not as a share of income or a round number. Two households with identical incomes can need very different funds if one has a home loan and dependants and the other does not — which is exactly what a multiple of income fails to capture.
The target is your essential monthly spending multiplied by the number of months you want to cover. Nothing more complicated, and deliberately so — this is one of the few financial figures where the arithmetic really is the whole answer.
Essential spending is the part that does not stop when your income does. Rent or EMI, food, utilities, fees, insurance premiums, medication. Discretionary spending is excluded because you would cut it in an emergency, and including it inflates the target.
How many months you cover is your call. This planner defaults to six but does not treat that as correct — the honest answer depends on how quickly your income could be replaced, and that is something you know and we do not.
The gap is the target less what you have already set aside. The monthly figure is what closing that gap would take over the period you choose, assuming the modest return you set.
No inflation is applied to the target, because an emergency fund is spent in today's money. Inflating a buffer you are building over the next year would overstate it.
What this does not tell you
- It does not judge how many months you should hold. A single-income household with dependants and a home loan is in a different position from two earners with neither, and nothing here can tell the difference.
- It does not model where to hold the money. Immediate access without loss of capital is what matters, and the assumed return is low for that reason.
- Insurance is not accounted for. Adequate health and term cover changes what an emergency fund actually has to absorb, and that is a separate question from this one.
- It assumes your essential spending stays roughly as entered. A new EMI or a new dependant raises the target, so it is worth re-checking after any change of that kind.
- Nothing about your accounts is visible to this planner. The amount set aside is only what you enter.
Frequently asked questions
Calculators behind this plan
This planner is built from the same calculations these calculators run. Open one to look at a single piece of the plan in more detail.
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Disclaimer
These planners are provided for general information and planning only, and are not investment, tax or legal advice. Every figure is an estimate produced from the assumptions you enter, each of which is listed on the page — they are not forecasts of markets, inflation, property prices or fees, none of which can be predicted. Market-linked investments can lose value and past returns say nothing about future ones. Nothing here recommends a product or a course of action. For advice on your own situation, speak to a qualified professional, several of whom you can consult on Finvestalk.