Emergency Fund Calculator

Your target from YOUR essential month, with a real date at your saving pace.

The usual guideline is three to six months of expenses, and the word doing the work is expenses, not income. What you need to survive a gap is rent, utilities, food, transport, insurance and minimum debt payments, which is generally well below what you actually spend in a normal month.

Where it sits changes what it earns. The national average savings account paid 0.37% (FDIC national rates, 21 September 2026); accounts advertised as high-yield have been paying several times that for the same federal insurance and the same instant access. The balance should stay somewhere you can reach the same day, which rules out anything with a withdrawal penalty.

Results

Your results will appear here.

Type your numbers on the left and press Calculate. Nothing you enter is saved.

See a worked example

Example figures

Essential expenses per month$2,400
Months of cover3
Already saved$400
Monthly saving$200

Example results

Your emergency fund target$7,200 3 months × $2,400 of essential expenses

Already saved$400

Still to go$6,800

Time to target at $200/month2 years 10 months around August 2029

First milestone: $1,000 (about 3 months away at this pace). Layers count: $500, $1,000, one month, three.

Essentials = the survival month: housing, utilities, food, transport, insurance, medicine, minimum debt payments. Not your normal spending.

Keep going How big should it be?The savings ladder