How to set and invest your emergency fund

Emergency funds need a PR makeover.

First, there’s the name itself—who wants to contemplate broken-down cars, sick dogs, or job loss? Perhaps a name like “cushion fund” would hasten interest.

Then there are the ideal emergency-fund (oops, cushion fund) amounts that are usually bandied about—three to six months’ worth of living expenses in very safe investments. That’s a decent starting point, but it sounds hopelessly off-putting to people just getting their financial footing. In reality, the only living expenses you need to cover with your emergency fund are the very basic ones—housing costs, insurance expenses, utilities, and food; from that standpoint, amassing a cash cushion looks a lot more manageable.

Emergency funds need better messaging because they’re an absolutely crucial aspect of any financial plan, regardless of the life stage or situation. For people who already have high-interest-rate debt, having an emergency fund can help guard against resorting to additional high-cost financing in a pinch. Having a cash cushion on hand also helps you defray unexpected expenses, whether a new roof or out-of-pocket healthcare costs, without needing to raid your retirement accounts for financial hardship. Finally, the big reason to have an emergency fund—and this is where the three to six months’ worth of living expenses guideline comes from—is to cover your basic costs in case of job loss. The greater your fixed expenses and the harder your job would be to replace (because it’s specialised and/or higher paying), the larger your emergency fund needs to be.

Here are the key steps to take when setting up your emergency fund.

Step 1: Determine your monthly living expenses

Tally up your essential monthly outlays: housing costs, utilities, food expenses, servicing debt, insurance, and taxes, to name the biggies. As noted above, you don’t have to include nonessential items that you could live without in a pinch, such as discretionary clothing purchases, high-cost cable packages, and the like. Multiply your essential living expenses by three months. This is your absolute minimum savings target for your emergency fund.

From there, you can customise your own emergency-fund amount upward based on your own situation. One of the biggest determinants of emergency-fund size is your career path. Contractors or other workers with lumpy income streams should obviously have bigger cash buffers than noncontractors. Also factor in the nature of your position: The more remunerative and specialized your job, the harder it will likely be to replace. Age, unfortunately, is a related issue: In part, because they tend to earn more and occupy more specialised positions, it took older workers longer to replace lost jobs in the last recession than it did younger workers. (Age discrimination is no doubt in the mix, too.)

Finally, factor in how much flexibility you have to adjust your expenses downward in a pinch. New graduates who could readily relocate, get roommates, or move back in with mom and dad can get away with a smaller emergency fund. But if you’re carrying a mortgage, have two car payments, as well as children and related expenses, your emergency fund should obviously be much larger.

Step 2: See how much you have right now

Add up the aggregate investments that you hold in your bank accounts and money market accounts and funds. Exclude any assets that you have earmarked for other purposes, such as money that you’re saving for a car down payment or education costs; also exclude any cash holdings in your stock or bond managed funds. This is your current emergency fund.

Step 3: Set your Emergency Fund savings target

Subtract the figure from Step 2 (your current emergency fund) from the figure in Step 1 (your target emergency fund). This is how much you need to save at a bare minimum—it should be double this level or more. Setting money aside to hit this savings target should be your main savings priority in the months ahead. (If you’re also paying off high-interest credit card debt, you should try to build up your emergency fund at the same time.)

Step 4: Identify appropriate investments

Cash yields are ephemeral; sometimes they’re up, sometimes they’re down. But your emergency fund is not the spot to stretch for extra income. My advice is to use plain-vanilla cash investments: checking and savings accounts, CDs, and money market accounts. Online savings accounts are often one of the highest-yielding cash options; credit unions also frequently offer decent yields.

Step 5: Find the right receptacle

Finally, being able to access emergency-fund assets in a pinch is crucial—you don’t want to have to deal with taxes or penalties. For that reason, it’s ideal to maintain your emergency fund in vehicles that don’t penalise you for withdrawals; that way you won’t have to pay any taxes or penalties if you need to spend from your emergency fund.

If you’re a homeowner, it can make sense to augment (but not replace) your emergency fund by setting up a home equity line of credit to use in case of emergency. That way, should you find yourself in a real bind and have to exhaust your emergency fund, you’ll have another safety net in place. Interest rates on home equity lines of credit are usually quite low relative to other forms of financing and may be tax deductible if used for certain home-related improvements. Set one up while you’re employed, because it’s much harder to secure this type of financing if you’re not.