Emergency fund calculator
An emergency fund is measured in months, not dollars: how long you could cover the bills that do not stop if your income did. Enter your essential costs below and see your target, how many months you have today, and when you will get there.
Your essential monthly costs
Only what you would still pay with no income coming in.
How many months to cover
The usual default for a single income.
Your emergency fund
6 × $2,520 of essentials
$12,620 still to save
At $400 a month
Start with one month — $2,520. A starter fund that size keeps most surprise bills off a credit card while you build the rest.
Track it in Wally
Add your emergency fund as a budget category in Wally with $400 a month planned, and you will see each month whether it actually got paid in.
Wally is a free budgeting app for iOS and Android — no subscription, no bank connection required. See how it works.
How to calculate your emergency fund
Add up the costs you would still have to pay in a month with no income — rent or mortgage, groceries, utilities, insurance, transport and the minimum payments on any debt. Leave out the things you would cut immediately, like eating out and subscriptions.
Multiply that monthly figure by the number of months you want covered. That product is your target. The calculator above does exactly this, then subtracts what you have already saved to show the gap.
Three months or six?
Three months is a reasonable floor if your income is steady, your household has two earners, or you could find similar work quickly. Six months is the common default for a single income.
Go higher — nine to twelve months — if you are self-employed, paid on commission, work in a field where job searches run long, or support dependents on one income. The less predictable the income, the more months the fund has to cover.
Where to keep it
Somewhere separate from your everyday account, so it is not spent by accident, but instantly reachable without penalties — usually a high-yield savings account. An emergency fund is insurance, not an investment: the point is that it is there, at full value, the day you need it.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I have in my emergency fund?
Enough to cover three to six months of essential expenses — the costs that continue if your income stops. For someone whose essentials are $2,500 a month, that is $7,500 to $15,000. Self-employed people and single-income households should aim nearer six to twelve months.
Should my emergency fund cover my whole budget or just essentials?
Just essentials. In a real emergency you would stop eating out, pause subscriptions and delay big purchases, so including them inflates the target and makes it slower to reach. Housing, food, utilities, insurance, transport and minimum debt payments are the usual list.
Should I save an emergency fund or pay off debt first?
Most people do both in stages: build a small starter fund of around one month of essentials first, so a surprise bill does not go on a credit card, then put extra money towards high-interest debt, then finish the full emergency fund.
Is my data saved anywhere?
No. The calculator runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is sent to a server or stored.