Family Emergency Fund
Free Family Emergency Fund calculator with clear step-by-step results.
About Family Emergency Fund
Sizes the fund against essential spending rather than total income, then adjusts for how exposed the household actually is: two earners diversify the risk of losing one income, while commission or freelance income needs a deeper buffer because the gaps are longer and less predictable.
Formulas
Target fund
Target = essential monthly spend x months of cover x stability factor x earner factor
Months to fund
Months = (target - current savings) / monthly saving
Worked example
With the default values below, Family Emergency Fund returns Emergency fund target of $17,280.00. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.
Inputs used
- Essential monthly spendingminimum 0 $
- 3,200 $
- Months of cover wantedaccepts 1–24
- 6
- Income earners in the householdaccepts 1–5
- 2
- Income stabilityone of Very stable - salaried, in demand, Stable, Variable - commission or contract, Highly variable - freelance or seasonal
- Stable
- Currently in the emergency fundminimum 0 $
- 6,000 $
- Amount saved each monthminimum 1 $
- 450 $
Results
- Emergency fund target
- $17,280.00
- Still to save
- $11,280.00
- Months until fully funded
- 25.1 months
- Months of cover you have today
- 1.9 months
Step by step
- 1Values used
- 2Target fund
- 3Months to fund
- 4Emergency fund target= $17,280.00
- 5Still to save= $11,280.00
- 6Months until fully funded= 25.1 months
- 7Months of cover you have today= 1.9 months
Assumptions and limits
- The result is derived only from the 6 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
- In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
- Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.
How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should the fund cover total spending or essentials only?
Essentials - housing, food, utilities, insurance, minimum debt payments and childcare. Discretionary spending is the first thing to cut in an emergency, so funding it inflates the target.
Where should the money sit?
Somewhere accessible within days and not exposed to market falls, which usually means an instant-access or notice savings account rather than investments.