Emergency fund calculator

What the number means

An emergency fund is money set aside for things you cannot schedule: a job loss, a medical bill, a car repair. The useful way to size it is in months of essential expenses, not as a round dollar figure, because the same $10,000 lasts three months for one household and five weeks for another. This calculator starts from your own essentials, multiplies by the months you choose, subtracts what you have, and works out how long the rest takes at your pace. The 1-, 3-, 6- and 12-month table shows how the goal and the wait grow if you aim higher.

It differs from the savings goal calculator, which takes a finished target and a number of years and returns the monthly deposit. Here the target is derived from your expenses, the page tells you how many months of essentials you already cover, and it gives the time at the deposit you can afford.

Worked example

Essentials are $3,000 a month, the goal is 3 months, you have $2,000, you add $300 a month, and the account pays 3% a year. The goal is $9,000. You already cover 0.7 months and are $7,000 short. At $300 a month that takes 1 years 11 months, and finishing in 18 months needs $375.69 a month. For a 6-month goal of $18,000 the same deposit needs 4 years 2 months.

How many months of expenses should an emergency fund hold?

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's financial empowerment toolkit says that to have enough money for an emergency you must save at least 3 to 6 months' worth of living expenses, and suggests starting with a first goal of $500. Treat 3 to 6 months as a guideline, not a rule: a single earner in an unstable field, a self-employed person or a household with one income may want more, and a two-income household with stable jobs may be comfortable with less. The calculator lets you set any goal from a fraction of a month to 60 months and shows the 1-, 3-, 6- and 12-month steps next to it.

Which expenses count as essential?

Count what you would still have to pay in a month with no income: rent or mortgage, utilities, groceries, insurance premiums, minimum debt payments, transportation to get to work, medicine and childcare. Leave out dining out, subscriptions, travel and savings contributions. Use a typical month from your bank statements instead of an estimate from memory, since people tend to undercount small recurring costs. Because the goal is a multiple of this number, an extra $200 a month of forgotten costs adds $600 to a 3-month goal.

How is the time to reach the goal calculated?

The goal is essential monthly expenses × months. You add a deposit at the end of each month, and the balance grows at the yearly rate divided by 12. With interest, the months needed are n = ln((G × i + p) ÷ (B × i + p)) ÷ ln(1 + i), where G is the goal, B your balance, p the monthly deposit and i the monthly rate; with no interest it is simply (G − B) ÷ p. The result is rounded up to whole months. The deadline field turns it around: the deposit needed to reach the goal in a chosen number of months. Interest rates change and taxes are ignored, so treat the dates as estimates.

What does the example show?

Take essential expenses of $3,000 a month, a goal of 3 months, $2,000 already saved, a deposit of $300 a month and a 3% yearly return. The goal is $9,000, you are $7,000 short and at that pace it takes 1 years 11 months; without interest it would take 2 years 0 months. To finish in 18 months you would need $375.69 a month. Raising the goal to 6 months ($18,000) stretches the time to 4 years 2 months. These are example numbers, not typical values.

How common is a cash cushion in the United States?

The Federal Reserve's survey of the economic well-being of US households, the report for 2025 published in May 2026, found that 63 percent of adults would cover an unexpected $400 expense using cash, savings or a credit card paid off at the next statement. That share was unchanged from the previous three years and below the 2021 high of 68 percent. The remainder would borrow, sell something or not be able to pay: 12 percent of all adults said they could not pay the expense by any means. Among adults with income under $50,000, 4 in 10 said they could not cover even a $100 emergency with savings alone.

Where should the money be kept?

Somewhere you can reach it in a day or two without a penalty and where its value does not swing: an insured savings or money market account is the usual choice, and a savings account at a bank is insured by the FDIC up to the standard limit per depositor, per bank and ownership category. Money in stocks can lose value just when you lose a job, which defeats the purpose. Do not count a credit card limit or a home equity line as part of the fund: they are borrowing, not savings.

Should I pay off debt or build the fund first?

Most guidance says to do both in order: a small first cushion (the CFPB suggests starting with $500) so that a flat tire does not go on a credit card, then pay down high-interest debt, then build toward the 3 to 6 months. Run the numbers in the credit card payoff calculator and compare the card's interest with what the savings account pays.

Common mistakes

Using your total spending instead of essentials makes the goal much larger and the fund slower to build; use essentials, and add a line for an insurance deductible. Counting a credit limit as the fund is the opposite error, because borrowing in a crisis is exactly what the fund is meant to avoid. Raiding the fund for a planned expense such as a vacation, then not refilling it, leaves you without a cushion when you need it. Finally, counting only your own paycheck: if a job loss would cut household income, the fund is drawn down while any unemployment benefit, which varies by state, covers only part of the gap.

Limits of this method

The 3-to-6-month guideline from the CFPB is a general rule for a typical household. It does not know your health, your debts, whether you own a home or how stable your industry is, and it says nothing about irregular income, where a larger buffer is common advice. The time estimate assumes a fixed deposit and a fixed interest rate, so a pay cut or a rate change will move the date. The Federal Reserve data are a reminder of how many households have no such cushion: in the 2025 survey 63 percent would cover a $400 expense in cash or its equivalent.

An estimate for planning only — not financial advice; your circumstances differ. Sources, checked October 27, 2026: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Your Money, Your Goals: A financial empowerment toolkit (June 2020); Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2025 (published May 2026), executive summary and the Savings and Investments section. Related: the savings goal calculator, budget calculator, credit card payoff calculator, compound interest calculator and wedding budget calculator. How we check our calculators.