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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday October 22 2019, @09:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the there's-always-the-day-*after*-tomorrow dept.

Economists say this is the Minimum Amount of Money you Need in an Emergency Fund:

Money experts generally encourage you to set aside three to six months' worth of living expenses in an emergency fund. Some even want you to stash away a year's worth.

After all, life doesn't usually go as planned: There could be another recession, you could lose your job, have a medical emergency or have to deal with a car breaking down. That's why, when it comes to emergency savings, "more is always better," personal finance author David Bach says.

But economists Emily Gallagher and Jorge Sabat challenge the oft-cited savings rules in their 2019 report, "Rules of Thumb in Household Savings Decisions." "People are usually given really high savings thresholds, like you should be saving six months' worth of income or you should have $15,000 squirreled away," Gallagher tells CNBC Make It. But those numbers aren't "based on much," she adds.

After crunching the numbers, Gallagher and Sabat found a more realistic amount for low-income households, specifically, to aim for: $2,467. If you have that much saved, your probability of falling into financial hardship (not being able to pay rent, bills or medical care) is low.

To get to that number, Gallagher and Sabat, who are also assistant professors of finance, used data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to graph the relationship between falling into hardship in the next six months and how much you have saved as a buffer. They looked at financial information on more than 70,000 lower-income households, which the report defines as those earning under 200% of the poverty line. To put that into context, that's up to about $30,000 a year for a family of four, says Gallagher. This group represents "about 30% of the U.S. working-age population," she adds.

They found that if you have very little saved — say $200 to $500 — each additional dollar you set aside dramatically reduces your likelihood of falling into financial hardship. But once you have at least $2,467, "all of a sudden, saving an additional dollar didn't seem to be that helpful anymore," says Gallagher. "It still reduced your probability of falling into hardship a little bit, but it wasn't nearly as effective as when you were at low levels of savings."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 23 2019, @08:35AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 23 2019, @08:35AM (#910705)

    It's not wrong to point out that having children you can't comfortably afford is a bad idea. It's just another type of bad financial decision.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 23 2019, @01:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 23 2019, @01:39PM (#910790)

    What makes you think I'm not living comfortably? Didn't I just say that I weathered extended unemployment with no change to quality of life?
    Perhaps your idea of comfort and mine are different, and that's a value judgement on both of our parts. Assuming, however, that I couldn't possibly be properly caring for my children because I have more than you consider normal is insulting; especially so, given the rest of the context.