Reply to What's the least amount you'd feel comfortable having in liquid assets?

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[quote=Anonymous]I think we had about 17k left over after buying our house. We only put 5% down. We could have put down 10%, but we would have had maybe 1-2K of savings left over. I was uncomfortable with that amount, especially since we bought a 100 year old home with old-ish systems. I probably would have been more comfortable with a lower amount if we were buying a new home/a home with relatively new major systems, or a condo. Two years later we've built up our savings to about 32K, 28K of which is specifically earmarked for our emergency fund. (The rest is earmarked for other goals, but is certainly available if we needed it for a very big house project.) 28K is 4 months of expenses for us. We're building up to 6 months, which is our target just because "they" say it's the goal. It's probably realistic though, as our concern is having multiple big ticket house issues simultaneously. We also keep in mind our 17 year old car, which requires the occasional expensive repair, but will ultimately need replacing in the next few years, a kid in the next year hopefully (and supplementing unpaid leave). So given that we make enough money to save in anticipation of these events, having 50k in savings is probably a good goal given our individual circumstances.

As an aside, don't underestimate the cost of home repairs. Our house was super cold and drafty (ie couldn't get warmer than 65 degrees) during the cold snap in January so we had an energy audit done - they recommended 6K worth of repairs. We then wanted to move forward with some electrical stuff in the attic before extra insulation was addded up there, which was a 2K estimate (though admittedly that amount covered all of the electrical projects in the house, not just the attic work). Then our water heater blew, and it cost just under 2K to replace. And there were a few other unexpected things like our pet's teeth cleaning which turned into extractions (1K), a 2.5k escrow shortage, and my husband just injured his knee - it looks like he'll need surgery, so who knows what that will cost. All that was just the first 6 weeks of 2018.[/quote]

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