How much should you keep in cash now?

[Anonymous]

With the government and economy up in the air, is now a good time to keep more money in cash? Especially if you have high expenses and don't want to be forced to sell stocks during a downturn? How many months in living expenses do you keep in cash?

[Anonymous]

A year's worth of expenses, if you can.

[Anonymous]

Maybe not cash but certainly liquid assets.

1 year for us and we plan to add more.

[Anonymous]

The general consensus is that an emergency find should cover 3 - 6 months of expenses, providing time to replace lost income. If you think you'd have difficulty replacing a loss of employment because of the nature of your work or the job market generally, 6 - 12 months would be prudent. If you're conservative, 1.5 yrs of expenses would not be unreasonable. With federal money market funds yielding close to 4.5% these days, keeping a lot of cash in such vehicles is in any case not giving up much as compared to keeping reserves in bonds or equities.

[Anonymous]

What’s the situation? Are you married, are you both feds or govt adjacent? Do you have kids? How much of your monthly expenses are fixed?

[Anonymous]

Cash in bank, yes. Cash at home, not so much. There is a lot of advise about emergency fund - 6 months of expenses, 12 months, some people here were saying they have 2 years. I would say, 6 months minimum and as much as you can if are paying attention to the current moment in history.

[Anonymous]

I've stopped our regular investing and I'm just piling up cash. We've got 5 months now. Bonus gets paid next week and that will help pad it a bunch more.

[Anonymous]

We have about a year if we really cut back on spending. Glad we do as my husband has just been canned

[Anonymous]

Is it safe to keep cash in the bank?
They’re removing FDIC and there may be bank runs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it safe to keep cash in the bank?
They’re removing FDIC and there may be bank runs.

FDIC insurance is still a thing, even if agency staffing changes.

You can bury your money in your back yard if you prefer.

[Anonymous]

Right after the election I converted two years of expenses into liquid assets. With the stock market in a nose dive and MAGA out of control I feel I made the right decision. The stocks I sold have all lost 5-10% so the timing was right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right after the election I converted two years of expenses into liquid assets. With the stock market in a nose dive and MAGA out of control I feel I made the right decision. The stocks I sold have all lost 5-10% so the timing was right.

Wow. I did not realize market has the very hard time to go up until last week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right after the election I converted two years of expenses into liquid assets. With the stock market in a nose dive and MAGA out of control I feel I made the right decision. The stocks I sold have all lost 5-10% so the timing was right.

Your stocks may have nose dived but anyone with index funds is probably sitting about where they were in mid January. I’m not saying there won’t be a crash at some point, but I imagine folks reading your post and who don’t follow such things closely might panic upon reading it.

But yes, it’s a good idea to make sure you have some amount of funds in something safer. If you are about to retire, that might be a lot more funds than someone who is 40. But even at 40, socking some of your $ away in something steady (even a money market ) means you can reinvest it and watch it grow if the market does tank (buy the dip).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it safe to keep cash in the bank?
They’re removing FDIC and there may be bank runs.

FDIC insurance is still a thing, even if agency staffing changes.

You can bury your money in your back yard if you prefer.

For how much longer?

[Anonymous]

I don’t think anyone wants to get rid of deposit insurance, so money in the bank is safe (except for from inflation).

I keep my emergency money in I-bonds. Inflation protected (unless they start fixing the inflation figures, which is possible).