Emergency fund,
the honest number.
Enter your real fixed costs, not your income. See your 3, 6, 9 and 12 month targets. This is the number most people get wrong because they confuse "monthly spending" with "the number that keeps me alive."
The question it answersHow many months of expenses do I actually need saved?
Privacy: runs in your browser. What you enter stays on your device unless you copy a share link, which puts your inputs in the link.
Minimum. Most job-loss scenarios.
Standard target. Most people.
Self-employed, single income.
Specialized job, extreme caution.
Keep this in a separate-institution HYSA. No debit card. Deliberate friction. See Where to Bank. Top HYSA rates roughly 3.85 to 4.2% APYAnnual Percentage Yield (APY)An annualized measure of deposit interest that includes the effect of compounding. It is not an inflation-adjusted or after-tax return.Full definition as of September 2026[1] verify×DON'T TRUST, VERIFYClaim: Top HYSA rates roughly 3.85 to 4.2% APY as of September 2026.Verify at: Bankrate HYSA tracker ↗ Source 1 in the list belowRates track the federal funds rate (target range 3.75 to 4.00% after the September 16, 2026 FOMC decision).[2].
What this tool assumes
- The tool shows four coverage tiers (3, 6, 9 and 12 months of bare-bones costs) and does not pick one for you. The note under each card is the site's rough guidance, not a published standard: 3 months is the floor, 6 months fits most households, 9 months fits self-employed or single-income households, 12 months fits a specialized job that is slow to replace.
- Discretionary spending is excluded unless you tick the discretionary box; the amount in that box (default $300) is then added.
- A blank or negative field counts as $0; a note under the monthly cost says so when a negative amount or something that is not a usable number is entered. If the amounts are too large to add up, the tool shows "Too large" instead of a number. The amount already saved only fills the progress bars; it does not change the targets.
- Interest on the fund, taxes, and income during a job loss (unemployment benefits, a partner's pay) are not modeled.
Not financial advice. Your numbers stay in your browser.
HOW THIS IS CALCULATED
This tool runs entirely in your browser: no data is sent to any server.
- Bare-bones monthly cost = rent or mortgage + utilities + groceries + insurance + minimum debt payments + transportation + phone and internet + other non-negotiable costs. A blank or negative field counts as $0, and a note says so when a negative amount or something that is not a usable number is entered. When the discretionary box is ticked, that amount (default $300) is added.
- Targets = monthly cost × 3, 6, 9 and 12, shown rounded to the nearest dollar. The monthly cost is shown in whole dollars when it is a whole-dollar sum and to the cent otherwise; targets use that exact sum, not a rounded one.
- Each progress bar = amount already saved ÷ that target, capped at 100%.
The 3, 6, 9 and 12 month tiers are planning conventions, not a legal or regulatory standard; the note under each card says which situation each tier fits. The tool does not model interest earned on the fund, taxes, or income that keeps arriving during a job loss, such as unemployment benefits or a partner's pay. Verify the methodology or inspect the source code in your browser's dev tools.
Where to go from here
Sources
Bracketed numbers and verify badges in the text link to these sources. Figures, rates and rules change: check each source’s date before acting on it.
- Bankrate, Best high-yield savings rates (top accounts 3.85% to 4.20% APY, updated 2026-09-26). Checked 2026-09-26. ↩
- Federal Reserve Board, Open Market Operations: federal funds target range. Checked 2026-09-26. ↩
Calculators are educational estimates, not financial advice. Disclosures · How pages are reviewed