Emergency fund calculator

How to use the calculator

1. Choose your currency, then fill in “Essential costs per month”. The hint under the box lists what to include; the starting figure is 2,500.
2. Enter your savings in “Already saved for emergencies” (3,000 to start) and your monthly amount in “You can save per month” (400).
3. Answer the five questions under “How many months of cover?” and the calculator turns your answers into a suggestion of 3, 6, 9 or 12 months. Switch off “Use the suggestion” to pick any number from 1 to 24.
4. If your savings account pays interest, enter its rate in “Savings account rate (APY / AER)”. It starts at 0% because we don’t know which account you use.

The result shows the target, what’s left to save, how many months your savings cover today and when you’d reach the target.

How the numbers are worked out

The target is your essential costs per month (E) times the months of cover (M). Take off what you’ve already saved (S₀) to get what’s left, then divide that by what you save each month (C) and round up to a whole month. With the starting answers (salaried, just you, a fairly secure job, some sick pay and nobody depending on your income), the suggestion is 3 months because one income supports the household. In US dollars:

With interest, the calculator turns the yearly rate into a monthly one: r = (1 + APY)^(1/12) − 1. Each month it adds interest, then that month’s saving, until the balance reaches the target. That’s the same as solving n = ln((T × r + C) ÷ (S₀ × r + C)) ÷ ln(1 + r) and rounding up. At 4% APY the default target arrives a month sooner. You’d earn $182.55 of interest on the way (before tax), and on a six-month target of $15,000 the same rate also saves one month (29 instead of 30) while earning $845.92.

Choosing 3, 6, 9 or 12 months

The five questions score what would make a gap in income longer or harder to cover. The calculator starts at 3 and adds points for each risk. Self-employment adds 3. Pay that varies adds 2, and so does a job that feels uncertain. Being the only earner, having someone depend on your income and getting little or no sick pay or state support add 1 each. Then it rounds the total: 3 or 4 becomes 3 months, 5 to 7 becomes 6, 8 to 10 becomes 9, and 11 (self-employed, with every other risk too) becomes 12.

These weights are our own rule of thumb, shown so you can see why the calculator suggests what it does. No regulator sets a number. In the Federal Reserve’s survey of US adults in October 2025, 55% had money set aside for three months of expenses in an emergency or rainy-day fund. In the same survey, 63% said they would cover a $400 emergency expense with cash or its equivalent.

What counts as essential

Count what you’d still have to pay in a month with no income:

• rent or mortgage payments
• energy, water and other bills
• food you cook at home
• transport you can’t avoid, such as fuel or a bus pass
• insurance premiums
• the minimum payment on every debt
• childcare, prescriptions and any other cost you can’t pause

Leave out what you’d stop: eating out, trips, most subscriptions, extra debt payments and saving itself. Phone and internet sit in between; you’d keep both to look for work. The default of $2,500 could be $1,300 rent, $180 of bills, $450 of groceries, $220 transport, $150 insurance, $150 of minimum debt payments and a $50 phone plan.

Where to keep it

The fund has to be there in full on the day a bill arrives, which points to an easy-access savings account (a high-yield savings account in the US, an instant-access account in the UK). Shares and funds can be worth less on the day you need them. A fixed-term deposit may lock the money up, or charge a penalty to take it out early.

Interest is a bonus. The FDIC’s national average rate on US savings accounts was 0.37% on 21 September 2026, which pays about $28 a year on $7,500. Your own account may pay more or less, which is why the rate box starts at 0%.

Deposit protection pays you back, up to a limit, if a bank fails. We checked each limit below on the scheme’s own site on 14 October 2026.

Building it faster, and where debt fits

Two things shorten the wait: saving more each month and adding one-off money. With the defaults, raising the monthly amount from $400 to $500 cuts 12 months to 9, and so does adding a $1,000 tax refund to what’s already saved. On a six-month target the effect is larger in months:

If you also carry a credit card balance, the two goals compete for the same money. The Federal Reserve’s G.19 release of 7 October 2026 put the average rate on US card accounts that were charged interest at 22.15% in the second quarter of 2026. At that rate a $3,000 balance costs about $55 a month in interest, while $3,000 at the FDIC’s 0.37% average earns about $1. One order follows from that arithmetic: a starter fund of one month’s costs (so the next car repair doesn’t go on the card), then extra payments on the card, then the rest of the fund. The debt payoff calculator shows how quickly a card clears, and our guide on whether to pay off debt or save first works through the trade-off.

Scroll is education, not advice. Our lessons and calculators explain how money works in general. They don’t know your circumstances, so they can’t tell you what to do with yours. For that, speak to a qualified, regulated adviser in your country.

Three examples in three currencies

These people are made up; the numbers come from the calculator.

Say Priya’s easy-access account pays 3.5% AER. Entering that rate brings her date forward by a month, to 20 months, and earns her about £164 of interest on the way. Lena scores 4 points (3 for self-employment and 1 for having no sick pay), and her partner’s income keeps her suggestion at 6 months rather than 9. Arjun’s target of ₹2.7 lakh sits well inside India’s ₹5 lakh deposit insurance limit at a single bank.

What the calculation leaves out

The calculator assumes you save the same amount every month at a fixed rate, and it doesn’t take tax off interest. It also holds your costs flat, and prices don’t stay flat. US consumer prices rose 3.7% in the 12 months to September 2026, so a $7,500 target set a year earlier would need about $7,780 now. Recheck your essential costs once a year, or whenever your rent or household changes.