Entry № 14 · logged Oct 2, 2026Free, no sign-upEmergency Fund · Savings
Three months, six, or a full year? It depends on how your income arrives.
The months question is really an income question. Money that arrives like clockwork needs a thinner buffer than money that arrives when clients pay. Set your must-pay bills in the slip, read the four targets off the ledger, and match yours to the pattern below — not to a stranger's rule.
White-collar job searches now routinely run four to seven months — one reason the old three-month default keeps getting revised upward.
The reserve ledger, Form EF-14. Left column: what one month of staying alive actually costs. Right column: what you have and what you add. The slip posts your 3, 6, 9, and 12-month targets and stamps how many months you can cover today.
Targets are your essential expenses multiplied by months — nothing fancier. The road-to-target lines assume the deposit lands monthly and the yield compounds monthly. When a target date says "not on this deposit," the deposit is $0 or the yield alone cannot close the gap.
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From the ledger
How the ledger sizes a reserve
Three months suits a dual-income household with stable jobs, no dependents, and a mortgage that one paycheck can carry. Two incomes are themselves a hedge: the fund only has to bridge one job search, at reduced burn, for a short stretch. Six months is the standard for a single income, for kids, or for anyone whose job market is thin — the search itself can run most of that.
Nine to twelve months is the freelance and commission band, and the single-earner-with-dependents band. Variable income fails differently from salaried income: it rarely stops dead, it sags — three slow months at half pay draw the fund down exactly like one month at zero. Twelve months of essentials sounds extreme until it is expressed honestly: it is three months of a 75% income sag.
Whichever band you land in, fund it in order: one month, three, then your target. The slip's stamp moves EXPOSED → THIN → COVERED → FORTIFIED as you cross each line, which turns a years-long project into four finish lines instead of one distant one.
Disclaimer: arithmetic, not financial advice. Bands are rules of thumb from the standard guidance; your ledger decides.
Filed answers
Questions from the reserve desk
Why did the standard move from 3 months to 6?
Three things: job searches lengthened (white-collar hiring cycles of four to seven months are now common), medical costs outran general inflation so even insured households face real deductibles, and more households run on a single income. The old floor became the new minimum. The slip still posts the three-month line — as the first milestone, not the finish.
Do I need more if I am self-employed?
Yes — see the freelancer ledger linked below. Variable income argues for nine to twelve months, because the emergency is usually a sag, not a stop, and sags last longer.
Is this financial advice?
No — it is arithmetic on numbers you type.
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