Emergency Fund ?

Pepperoni

Hi,

I know most advice on here is to have 6 months income in an emergency fund. Is that 6 months of joint household income? Seems like a lot to save! :eek:

asparagus1968

I think people have differing amounts, Wow, I'd love 6 months wages tucked away!
My emergency fund is £1000, in an instant access account,this "Should"cover things like unforeseen car repairs, new washing machine, freezer, if I had to take leave from work etc.
Anything else goes into savings account. It's whatever suits you I guess.

enthusiasticsaver

Yes that is right but it depends on circumstances. For example if you are heavily in debt then it does not make sense to have thousands in savings and high credit card balances or overdrafts. The rationale behind having 6 months expenditure is if, worst case scenario you and Oh lost your jobs. If, however you are both in long term employment and would get redundancy you could aim for 3 months instead. We are close to retirement so have 5 years so we don't need to withdraw from investments. It is different for everyone.

Pepperoni

Thanks both.

We have no debts and are considering overpaying our mortgage, but I've been reading up on here and know it's advisable to have an emergency pot (which we don't currently have).

I'll have a play around with our numbers, some of our income is not needed (we could claw back) so if we were ever to be in an unfortunate position we probably wouldn't need to still have an income equal to our full salaries.

Helvetica_Van_Buren

Depends. Ask yourself the following:

- How secure are your jobs?
- How easily could you get another?
- What's the minimum you can live on if you had to?

It's all relative.

Brightspark87

I like to have at least 3 months worth of outgoings such as bills and things I couldn't do without. That means if anything happened we have 3 months there as a fall back. I also have pots for annual payments such as insurances so I know I don't have to pay interest and have that sat there.

pollyanna24

I agree that it's different for everyone. I have a mortgage (an old one now, don't think new ones let you do this) that I can take back any overpayments without question or form filling, or I can underpay my mortgage up to the value of the overpayments.

So my plan when I have my house in my sole name on Friday is just whack everything on the mortgage. Then if something happens, ask for some of the overpayments back.

I guess I'm kinda using my mortgage as my savings account, but one that I won't dip into unless I'm desperate.

datlex

If you were to need to claim benefits for any reason, you cannot have more than £6000 in savings. Therefore if you think your job is not secure you should ensure that you either have no more than that or enough above that to give you a higher weekly income than you would have got for the period you are without work through benefits.

Dandytf

Emergency fund....The most difficult part through sc dmp years.

2012-2019, total savings 230.00 0 only cause I found the 1000 savings challenge thread prior to xmas.

Don't get me wrong,with local retailers recently mentioning 10's 14's 19's packs ciggies are being fazed out and replaced with 20's -Maybe i'll make the effort to stop smoking as I did for +3yrs prior to moving home and jobs 2009.

Cant help telling myself I should have something from my monthly wages