Emergency fund if you have a "safe" job

[Anonymous]

While no job is completely secure, my position provides six months’ advance notice in the event of a layoff. I’ve been with the company for 15 years, and I will receive a pension upon retirement that includes cost-of-living adjustments.

My monthly expenses are $7,500, and I currently have $34,000 in a high-yield savings account. I’m considering investing $10,000 in a taxable account, which would leave me with $24,000—about three months’ worth of emergency savings.i plan to invest in an S&P index fund nothing exotic.

I understand that the standard recommendation is to maintain an emergency fund covering six, nine, or even twelve months of expenses. Given my situation, would maintaining a three-month emergency fund be reasonable?

My only debt is a car loan, and I do not have a mortgage, as I currently rent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While no job is completely secure, my position provides six months’ advance notice in the event of a layoff. I’ve been with the company for 15 years, and I will receive a pension upon retirement that includes cost-of-living adjustments.

My monthly expenses are $7,500, and I currently have $34,000 in a high-yield savings account. I’m considering investing $10,000 in a taxable account, which would leave me with $24,000—about three months’ worth of emergency savings.i plan to invest in an S&P index fund nothing exotic.

I understand that the standard recommendation is to maintain an emergency fund covering six, nine, or even twelve months of expenses. Given my situation, would maintaining a three-month emergency fund be reasonable?

My only debt is a car loan, and I do not have a mortgage, as I currently rent.

what is your monthly income (gross and net)?

[Anonymous]

I would do six months minimum. I had five months saved at a "safe" job I was laid off from and now am aiming for nine months in the future. It took me five months to start a new job, but a lot of people who were laid off at the same time as me had to take a lower paying job or are still searching for a job over a year later. It's especially bad for those over 40.

[Anonymous]

It's not just about being laid off. It could be an emergency where you can't work for medical reasons or need to leave your home or need to pay for a big unexpected expense. To me, your savings seems low relative to your expenses. It also depends on whether you are truly on your own or have family you can live with.

[Anonymous]

Money in your regular investment account is your emergency fund. You don't say how long it took you to save up the $34k, but if you had invested $1000 a month the last three years into VOO, you'd have ca $45k now.
When you lose a job, you pay very little tax on investments alone.
Your expenses are high. What is the reason you can't go $4k a month if needed? Be ready to sell the car, rent a studio as emergency plan, get a side hustle.
Safe job, money in investments, ability to go low expense and ready to get a side hustle, should let you sleep like a baby.

[Anonymous]

We were poor immigrants with debt, lack of family support, and low paying jobs so we struggled for at least 5-6 years before we were financially stable.
We did 3 months of emergency savings on a bare minimum standard of living for the longest time.

For our adult kids though, we made sure that they had - no student debt, a new car, basic stuff to set up an apartment for independent living (furniture, housewares, leisure and travel gear, electronics) , and that they stayed home for 2 years and banked all their earnings before they left home.

In today's economy and job market, my suggestion would be to have an emergency fund that covers 1 whole year of living expenses at least. And to do that, you need to track what you spend and have a good idea of your fixed costs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Money in your regular investment account is your emergency fund. You don't say how long it took you to save up the $34k, but if you had invested $1000 a month the last three years into VOO, you'd have ca $45k now.
When you lose a job, you pay very little tax on investments alone.
Your expenses are high. What is the reason you can't go $4k a month if needed? Be ready to sell the car, rent a studio as emergency plan, get a side hustle.
Safe job, money in investments, ability to go low expense and ready to get a side hustle, should let you sleep like a baby.

You must be young. People in 2008 lost 70% of their investment wealth, and then lost their jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Money in your regular investment account is your emergency fund. You don't say how long it took you to save up the $34k, but if you had invested $1000 a month the last three years into VOO, you'd have ca $45k now.
When you lose a job, you pay very little tax on investments alone.
Your expenses are high. What is the reason you can't go $4k a month if needed? Be ready to sell the car, rent a studio as emergency plan, get a side hustle.
Safe job, money in investments, ability to go low expense and ready to get a side hustle, should let you sleep like a baby.

You must be young. People in 2008 lost 70% of their investment wealth, and then lost their jobs.

Wow didn't know. 70% that's crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Money in your regular investment account is your emergency fund. You don't say how long it took you to save up the $34k, but if you had invested $1000 a month the last three years into VOO, you'd have ca $45k now.
When you lose a job, you pay very little tax on investments alone.
Your expenses are high. What is the reason you can't go $4k a month if needed? Be ready to sell the car, rent a studio as emergency plan, get a side hustle.
Safe job, money in investments, ability to go low expense and ready to get a side hustle, should let you sleep like a baby.

You must be young. People in 2008 lost 70% of their investment wealth, and then lost their jobs.

Young plus they don’t understand the concept of emergency fund.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Money in your regular investment account is your emergency fund. You don't say how long it took you to save up the $34k, but if you had invested $1000 a month the last three years into VOO, you'd have ca $45k now.
When you lose a job, you pay very little tax on investments alone.
Your expenses are high. What is the reason you can't go $4k a month if needed? Be ready to sell the car, rent a studio as emergency plan, get a side hustle.
Safe job, money in investments, ability to go low expense and ready to get a side hustle, should let you sleep like a baby.

You must be young. People in 2008 lost 70% of their investment wealth, and then lost their jobs.

From peak in 2007 to the trough in 2009, the stock market lost just over 50%. A lot, but not 70%.

I do agree that an emergency fund should not be in VOO, though there are many investors with a higher risk tolerance who believe you should be. We have our emergency fund in SGOV. But we are older.

[Anonymous]

Depends on your circumstances. Mortgage, rent or children, I wouldn't feel comfortable today without one-year in an emergency account. Ours is in a money market account.

Fully own our house, kids already through college, abd retirement decently funded, I'd worry less about having one year of expenses saved up

[Anonymous]

I only keep 30k in savings. We net after all deductions (insurance, 401k, mega roth) about 32k/mo and burn about 15k/mo. The remainder gets invested in a taxable brokerage. So yea if both our incomes vanished, we would have 2 months of rope at our same lifestyle. it would be very unlucky if we both instantly lost our jobs. Is rather pull from investments rather than have cash sitting on the sidelines.

[Anonymous]

I don’t have an emergency fund. I just have various parts of my portfolio that I could access rapidly, like I-bonds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Money in your regular investment account is your emergency fund. You don't say how long it took you to save up the $34k, but if you had invested $1000 a month the last three years into VOO, you'd have ca $45k now.
When you lose a job, you pay very little tax on investments alone.
Your expenses are high. What is the reason you can't go $4k a month if needed? Be ready to sell the car, rent a studio as emergency plan, get a side hustle.
Safe job, money in investments, ability to go low expense and ready to get a side hustle, should let you sleep like a baby.

You must be young. People in 2008 lost 70% of their investment wealth, and then lost their jobs.

Wow didn't know. 70% that's crazy.

i lived through it and even i didn’t know, and didn’t come even close to losing that. i’ve been investing steadily since 2000 and my net worth now grows each year higher than my W2 income. I hold very very little in cash. it’s worked very well for me for 26 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Money in your regular investment account is your emergency fund. You don't say how long it took you to save up the $34k, but if you had invested $1000 a month the last three years into VOO, you'd have ca $45k now.
When you lose a job, you pay very little tax on investments alone.
Your expenses are high. What is the reason you can't go $4k a month if needed? Be ready to sell the car, rent a studio as emergency plan, get a side hustle.
Safe job, money in investments, ability to go low expense and ready to get a side hustle, should let you sleep like a baby.

You must be young. People in 2008 lost 70% of their investment wealth, and then lost their jobs.

Wow didn't know. 70% that's crazy.

i lived through it and even i didn’t know, and didn’t come even close to losing that. i’ve been investing steadily since 2000 and my net worth now grows each year higher than my W2 income. I hold very very little in cash. it’s worked very well for me for 26 years.

Me too. If you never sold, you never lost anything. There have been a couple of times I wished we had more cash on hand in the last 30 years, but we managed our way through. Not sorry we invested almost all our savings.