How big is your emergency reserve?

[Retired To Win]

I suspect I may be a little overcautious regarding my Emergency Reserve Fund(s).

I keep a full year's worth of my basic living expenses in a savings account as an emergency reserve.  Separate from that, I keep another savings account with enough money in it to cover one year's worth of my health insurance premiums and maximum out-of-pocket.  And, if I ever absolutely needed it, I have a big stack of credit cards with aggregate instantly available credit well in the six figures.

How does that compare to what you have set up, or are in the process of setting up, to cover you in case of unexpected interruptions in your income?  What's your take on what I have set up?

[Bracken_Joy]

I suspect I may be a little overcautious regarding my Emergency Reserve Fund(s).

I keep a full year's worth of my basic living expenses in a savings account as an emergency reserve.  Separate from that, I keep another savings account with enough money in it to cover one year's worth of my health insurance premiums and maximum out-of-pocket.  And, if I ever absolutely needed it, I have a big stack of credit cards with aggregate instantly available credit well in the six figures.

How does that compare to what you have set up, or are in the process of setting up, to cover you in case of unexpected interruptions in your income?  What's your take on what I have set up?

I know we measure everything on this forum relative to living expenses, as a percentage, etc. But at a certain point, absolute value of cash matters (ex. medical bills). Since your living expenses are so low, I don't think it's overcautious to have a bigger buffer there.

We only have 3 months of an emergency buffer right now. Partially because we're poor and starting out, partially because we're young and resilient, and we don't have any dependents. We don't own a home or have auto loans or anything that can get repo'd. As soon as I get a job though, we're building that buffer back up. We decided to shrink it in order to fund SO's tIRA for 2014.

[One Noisy Cat]

immediate cash (bank, credit union). about four months. But since I am 60 I can access my tax-deferred accounts within a few days.  debts are $0.

[Colgate_Toothpaste]

I keep $10k in one account solely for emergencies, which is now about 6 months of expenses (mortgage, food, utilities, gas, cell, small personal loan, etc). 

As I continue to pay things off and get better services for lower costs, the safety factor will increase.  :)

[ChaseJuggler]

My checking usually has about 8000 in it. Everything else goes into tax deferred accounts. (I don't make enough to max them out)

About 3000 of it is usually flying around various accounts to earn bank and fr dit card bonuses. Technically, my emergency fund is my strongest investment if you count the bank bonuses!

[Cezil]

I have about 3K, or two months worth, in mine.  I contribute $50 ($75/mo in 3-paycheck months) automatically each month from my paychecks.  I know it's not a whole lot, but doing anything at all is a good start.  I keep the money in an account where, if I make consistent deposits for 6 consecutive months, I get another 2.5% interest on the interest earned in that prior 6-month time frame; also, if I make no withdrawals for 6 consecutive months, I earn *another* 2.5% interest on the interest earned in that prior 6-month time frame.  It helps me to not just dip in here or there when I want cash for non-emergencies, but I'm not afraid to take a big chunk out of it if I need it for an actual emergency.

Edited to add:  On an overall average yearly balance of about $2,000 last year, I got about $20 in interest.  Hopefully it will continue to just keep going up from there with my contributions.

[Davids]

We keep too much cash but it is at my wife's insistence. It is a fair compromise since we do MAX our 401Ks, Roth IRAs and HSA and maintain and after tax brokerage account for additional investments and our only debt is mortgage. With that said we maintain $10K in checking (0%) and $30K in Savings Account (0.75%).

[Zinsch]

I don't really keep an emergency fund. I have of course some liquid funds to pay recurring expenses.
In case of an emergency, I would just sell some shares.

[kpd905]

We've been keeping about 6 months expenses, but I've been thinking about cutting that back a bit and throwing some at my student loans.  I figure the chance of us both losing our jobs at the same time is pretty slim, and the lower paying job covers about 2/3 of our current expenses.

A large chunk of our emergency fund right now is held in various checking accounts that offered sign up bonuses.  So we have $8000 tied up for 6 months to get $900 in bonuses.

[RWD]

All our checkings and savings accounts adds up to about a year of expenses right now. I think I'd like to target a bit closer to six months though.

[onecoolcat]

I have about 1k cash.  I throw everything I have at my student loans and investments and just keep enough in my checking account to keep it from getting and overdraft.

[Chuck]

I have a few grand in cash, 10.5k principle in a Roth, 26k in my taxable account AND a 2500 limit on my credit card.

That should get me through most disasters.

[h2ogal]

We have way too much.

I have almost 2 yrs of spending.  I want to keep cut that in half and plan to keep about a year of expenses. 

Im in a bit of analysis paralysis on how to allocate the excess.   Due to this forum and bogleheads Im learning so much really fast but Im stuck in waffle mode right now.

[Kaminoge]

I have a massive redraw facility on my mortgage. So I have quick access to several years worth of expenses but of course I have no wish to ever use it for that.

[Retired To Win]

We have way too much.

I have almost 2 yrs of spending.  I want to keep cut that in half and plan to keep about a year of expenses. 

Im in a bit of analysis paralysis on how to allocate the excess.   Due to this forum and bogleheads Im learning so much really fast but Im stuck in waffle mode right now.

My mouth is hanging open at learning that someone actually has a bigger emergency reserve than I do! (LOL)

I'm starting to think that -- in my particular financial circumstances -- a year's worth of reserve cash is more than is necessary.  But I'm still analyzing (hopefully not to the point of paralysis).

Hey!  Keep the feedback coming!

[thepokercab]

I tend to have enough cash around to cover 1 month's worth of expenses.   Everything else is invested.

I also have an HSA which I keep a couple hundred dollars in, to cover office visits or what not, but mostly invest that money as well.

Then, i'll usually keep open one line of credit that is in a 0% intro APR period. For me right now that is my Chase Freedom Card. This kind of acts as my 'emergency fund' so to speak. So if any major expense comes up i'll put it on the 0% APR card and pay it down at whatever pace I choose.  For my Chase Freedom, the 0% APR period ends in like December, so after that, i'll probably get the Amex Every Day card, or something like that, which will last another 15 months- and so forth.   

[gecko10x]

Between monthly expenses and various sinking funds, our checking fluctuates between $7-$20,000. Currently sitting at about $18k, but none of it is what I'd call an emergency fund.

[James!]

What sort of emergencies are you all preparing for?! I'm shocked at how much money is sitting around doing nothing.

I have just enough in checking/savings to cover auto-pay bills and mortgage and not worry about that getting below a few thousand.

I have ~$15k in Betterment (50/50 allocation) sitting in an "emergency fund" account

Then ~$100k available in a HELOC, then over $100k in CC lines (never!)


Also I feel like this was covered in a fairly recent thread, although I'm too lazy to search for it.

[Retired To Win]

What sort of emergencies are you all preparing for?! I'm shocked at how much money is sitting around doing nothing.
...

Any emergency (natural, political or --primarily -- personal) that would result in a protracted interruption of income which could then force one to liquidate investments at times not of one's choosing.  Or, for those without enough invested, that could force one into unwanted high-interest debt.  Or, for those without credit, that could force one into a financial meltdown.

And the money is not "doing nothing".  It is playing defense, while the rest of the money plays offense.

[Kris]

We used to have the 6 month reserve, but now our sitch is such that we don't really need that large of an emergency stash.  If we had a real emergency, we'd just sell off some Vanguard index fund.

[Random Internet Stranger]

Nowhere near enough :( I am shoving $ in the 911 fund as much and as fast as I can, but its not close at all to what we need. ATM its only 2k...should be closer to 15k if we wanted a 3 month fund.

[ender]

3 months expenses at current spending, but that would cover six months if we had to due to job loss.

[Retired To Win]

We used to have the 6 month reserve, but now our sitch is such that we don't really need that large of an emergency stash.  If we had a real emergency, we'd just sell off some Vanguard index fund.

But part of the reason to have an Emergency Reserve is to not have to be forced to do that. (!)  Forced sales could easily be low-priced sales.

[PatStab]

$100k and could get more.

Issue is go to a bank and ask for cash.  I got $20k out of our small town bank and they didn't know
if they had that much cash, yep for real.

I guess you can order cash, so I'm told, and can get it in a few days, but.....

[YeahNo]

Up until 4 months ago I never really had an "emergency fund". I always thought it was a waste to just have money sitting there not working for me. Now that my wife is pregnant with our first, I have decided it is time to put a nice cash buffer in place. Throwing 5k/month into it right now. Sitting at 20k today. Plan is to do that the rest of the year which would give me 70k or so in liquid cash. This is about a year's worth of expenses for us.

I am a business owner and my wife no longer works so I need to be a bit safer than most.

[lordmetroid]

I only keep 1 month worth of savings in easy to reach buffer account before I transfer the capital to my stack.

[zinethstache]

We have rentals so need a big chunk for 6 month reserves. 50k cash is either a little over a year of our living or some variant less if we're unemployed and have vacancies (highly unlikely). We have plans for me FIRE ing soonish which includes 72t @ around 10k SEPP / year. Loc @ CU 25k. 75k CCs. 100k HELOC. 25k other mystery $$- I plan to pull this very soon to use for our next rental. LOC and CC $ is very last resort. Way too much but good cash on hand for underwriting mortgages.

[morning owl]

According to our IPS, we aim to keep 10% of our liquid assets in cash. I like having about 2 years basic expenses, which could also be used to rebalance in case of a market crash. We also have a huge HELOC that I hope to never have to use.

[Janie]

I only keep 1 month worth of savings in easy to reach buffer account before I transfer the capital to my stack.

Same.

ETA: the money is in checking, not a savings account. Basically, money comes into my checking account and once a month I allocate it to the following month's expenses then send the rest to an investment account.

[Psychstache]

about $50 in a savings acct and a couple thousand in checking to cover bill float. Not a fan of having idle monies sitting around.

[Kris]

We used to have the 6 month reserve, but now our sitch is such that we don't really need that large of an emergency stash.  If we had a real emergency, we'd just sell off some Vanguard index fund.

But part of the reason to have an Emergency Reserve is to not have to be forced to do that. (!)  Forced sales could easily be low-priced sales.

Yes, true.  But on the other hand, having an emergency fund is having an account that makes you basically no interest.  I'd rather have the money in an account that's earning money.  Besides which, we're pretty secure at the moment, so I don't think we have much to worry about.  Honestly, if I lost my job tomorrow, I'd just sell my car and start doing my side hustle from home full-time.

[Prepube]

I have about 1000 dollars in cash at home.  I don't understand the need for a large cash reserve during accumulation phases.  It would take only a day to access my vanguard accounts, and I have credit cards with about 60000 available credit.  That's my emergency money.  All of the real money is invested.  When I retire I will keep a year's worth of cash to live on, but that would not be considered "emergency" money.  What's the worst that could happen that my 1000 cash and a credit card couldn't deal with?

You can probably guess what I feel about insurance.... Most people are over insured, in my opinion.....

[boarder42]

I have 15k in taxable accounts now and a 15k heloc if I need that much. But taxable continue to grow. I keep it 100% in equities. So its not a traditional emergency fund. I don't believe in traditional emergency funds as I think they just cost you money thru not being invested over time.

[Zinsch]

We used to have the 6 month reserve, but now our sitch is such that we don't really need that large of an emergency stash.  If we had a real emergency, we'd just sell off some Vanguard index fund.

But part of the reason to have an Emergency Reserve is to not have to be forced to do that. (!)  Forced sales could easily be low-priced sales.

We mere mortals are not able to time the market. And a Vanguard index fund is so liquid that your sale will not affect the price in any way. As long as your emergencies are not correlated with the market performance, you are fine. That means, if your job is in the Finance industry and you are likely to lose your job, if the market crashes, then yes, it would be a bad idea.

[Much Fishing to Do]

Mine is a years worth of spending...but that's not really a lot given my extreme self-employed income fluctuation.  Also now that that is only worth about 7% of my investment account I figure that is an appropriate amount to have in cash anyway, so granted a much easier decision than years ago when that was a huge percent of my net worth.

[forummm]

We used to have the 6 month reserve, but now our sitch is such that we don't really need that large of an emergency stash.  If we had a real emergency, we'd just sell off some Vanguard index fund.

But part of the reason to have an Emergency Reserve is to not have to be forced to do that. (!)  Forced sales could easily be low-priced sales.

We mere mortals are not able to time the market. And a Vanguard index fund is so liquid that your sale will not affect the price in any way. As long as your emergencies are not correlated with the market performance, you are fine. That means, if your job is in the Finance industry and you are likely to lose your job, if the market crashes, then yes, it would be a bad idea.

I think even if you did lose your job at the same time the market crashed, it would be better in the long run to have your funds invested. Even if you get unlucky and have to sell it at 50% of peak value, over your lifetime those funds would probably have doubled and redoubled several times.

We keep about $3k in checking accounts, which is maybe 4 weeks of spending and principal payments. But we also have empty credit cards, a strong savings flow, and Vanguard funds that could be liquidated an in hand in 2 days.

[protostache]

A bit smaller now that we decided to pay off the car loan :)

When that's all settled we'll have two months of salary and related expenses (~$20k) in the business accounts and four nine months of emergency-budget expenses (~$20k) in personal savings and checking accounts. We're planning on moving some of that into a taxable investment account soon, probably into Schwab mutual funds since there's an empty Schwab account hanging off of our joint checking account. Either that or a joint Vanguard account.

edit: math.

[Retired To Win]

about $50 in a savings acct and a couple thousand in checking to cover bill float. Not a fan of having idle monies sitting around.

Fifty dollars in a savings account???

Well, there's enough of you that don't give much credence to emergency cash reserves to at least make me want to think things through to reconfirm my pro-reserve conclusion.  So I shall do that, just to double check my thinking.

[anotherAlias]

about $50 in a savings acct and a couple thousand in checking to cover bill float. Not a fan of having idle monies sitting around.

Fifty dollars in a savings account???

Well, there's enough of you that don't give much credence to emergency cash reserves to at least make me want to think things through to reconfirm my pro-reserve conclusion.  So I shall do that, just to double check my thinking.

I guess I'll play devils advocate then.  There is one point that I didn't see discussed in the above replies...you aren't in accumulation mode, you are in drawdown mode.  In accumulation mode, you use an emergency fund to cover unexpected expenses until your paycheck can make up the difference.  When you are retired and in drawdown mode, your stash is your sole source of income.  That emergency fund is now part of your withdrawal plan too.  How you withdraw from your stash doesn't get as much discussion around here but is really the fundamental question at play.  How do you withdraw money from your stash to cover your expenses (expected and unexpected) with the least damage to your stash.  There seems to be 2 schools of thought on this.  1-keep everything invested in your chosen asset allocation and withdraw what you need as you need it regardless of market performance.   2- divide your stash into buckets.  The first bucket is one to two years of cash that you live off of.  The second bucket is your investments that you liquidate strategically as market performance dictates to refill the first bucket.  This allows you to weather market down turns without selling at low prices. 

That's the simplified version.  Nords had a really great post on his site about draw down strategies.  He is far more articulate than the mess that I just typed up :). You may want to check that out before you make any decisions about your EF.

Edited to fix typing...must go find caffeine now

[Neustache]

This is an area I really need to address. 

I used to have 10K in my checking for emergencies...except the emergencies never came up so gradually that money got whittled away to 5K with planned expenditures.  Then I paid off a low interest car loan and it went down to 3K.  Then we did some planned repairs to the house and it's sitting at about 1K. 

We have a pretty decent cash flow each month.  I guess the major emergency we would face would be job loss.  It's doubtful that my husband wouldn't qualify for unemployment benefits in the case of job loss, which is my major concern emergency wise as most other emergencies we would be able to cash flow easily by using our 0% APR credit card (which I have an offer for one for 21 months...I need to get on that!).  Unemployment (when it kicks in) will be about 1200 a month, meaning we'd need about an extra $1000 a month to supplement during this time.  I don't have money in taxable accounts yet - almost all of it (save a bit from our Roth that's been in there for 5 years) would be faced with a penalty should we withdraw it.   It's my understanding that we can take out our contributions (not earnings) from our Roth without a penalty.

That's assuming of course, we don't have two emergencies at once!  Should my husband be unable to work due to a medical issue, we'd have deductibles and co-insurance on top of a lack of income.  That would be pretty devastating financially....but I don't know that I need to plan for the worst case scenario. 

I don't know.  I feel reasonably certain my husband's job is fairly secure.   Last time he looked for a new job, it took him 3 weeks, and he didn't even have much experience in his current field.  He now has years of experience, gets calls from recruiters on a fairly regular basis, and feels fairly confident in his ability to get a senior position, quickly.

It's the big stuff (medical issues plus job loss) that makes me think we should have a bit more of a buffer.  Medical bills on top of job loss would be pretty rough to tread, especially since right now the best job I could hope for would be about 30K a year.  In a few years, when I have my teaching certification, we'd be in a much better position.  Once we have two solid incomes, I probably wouldn't have any emergency fund - except for the rentals which would be a separate fund and solely for repairs/maintenance/vacancies.

Sorry for my long-winded response.  Just thinking aloud, here!

[Dances With Fire]

I tend to struggle with this often, however we are very close to FIRE than most our age...<6 years away.

 We also have 1 full year of basic needs in cash/ cd's/ & very short term bonds.

[asauer]

We have about 5 months of expenses.  With two small kids, I feel much better with a big buffer b/c you never know what the hell could happen with kids.

[ashwihi]

Pretty new mustachian here, but I currently have about 20K in a savings reserve, but would like to see it grow towards at least a years worth of salary (~80K) as I work in the Oil and Gas Industry which is notorious for layoffs (horray commodity driven industry!)

Glad to see what others are doing out there also!

[OldPro]

I don't have what I would call an 'emergency reserve' as such.  I have income designated to cover expenses, income designated as disposable and income designated to savings/investing.  The disposable income does sit as cash in a savings account and does float up and down.  I've never had an 'emergency' it wouldn't cover.

Forummm, the S&P 500 shed 46 percent from August 25, 2000, to October 4, 2002. Just five years later, during the housing bust, the S&P 500 lost 56 percent of its value from October 12, 2007, to March 6, 2009.  Now connect that with your statement, "I think even if you did lose your job at the same time the market crashed, it would be better in the long run to have your funds invested. Even if you get unlucky and have to sell it at 50% of peak value, over your lifetime those funds would probably have doubled and redoubled several times."

Where did the 'over your lifetime' come from?  Suppose you had FIRED 2 years before the 'emergency' came up and it came up during one of those drops.  If you had had $20k sitting in the bank it would still be $20k.  If you had to sell on the market, what was $20k would now be $10k.  So to get $20k you would need to sell what had been $40k. 

An 'emergency' is not a 'long run' issue it is a short term issue.  You cannot point to the long term as salvation.  Once you've sold, those shares are gone.  You can't look to the long term to build their value back up when they are gone.

[matchewed]

I don't have what I would call an 'emergency reserve' as such.  I have income designated to cover expenses, income designated as disposable and income designated to savings/investing.  The disposable income does sit as cash in a savings account and does float up and down.  I've never had an 'emergency' it wouldn't cover.

Forummm, the S&P 500 shed 46 percent from August 25, 2000, to October 4, 2002. Just five years later, during the housing bust, the S&P 500 lost 56 percent of its value from October 12, 2007, to March 6, 2009.  Now connect that with your statement, "I think even if you did lose your job at the same time the market crashed, it would be better in the long run to have your funds invested. Even if you get unlucky and have to sell it at 50% of peak value, over your lifetime those funds would probably have doubled and redoubled several times."

Where did the 'over your lifetime' come from?  Suppose you had FIRED 2 years before the 'emergency' came up and it came up during one of those drops.  If you had had $20k sitting in the bank it would still be $20k.  If you had to sell on the market, what was $20k would now be $10k.  So to get $20k you would need to sell what had been $40k. 

An 'emergency' is not a 'long run' issue it is a short term issue.  You cannot point to the long term as salvation.  Once you've sold, those shares are gone.  You can't look to the long term to build their value back up when they are gone.

It's the opportunity cost of the gains on all those positive years that your money could have been invested in anything other than cash versus the chance of a an emergency during a downside. Some people, depending on their assets and risk tolerance, are able to justify it easily. These people actually can look to the long term to build value. You also conveniently ignored the rest of his post in which he detailed that his emergency reserve has multiple strategies built in, credit, additional savings, and investments that can be tapped. That's pretty strong and requires less cash on hand.

[Retired To Win]

I don't have what I would call an 'emergency reserve' as such.  I have income designated to cover expenses, income designated as disposable and income designated to savings/investing.  The disposable income does sit as cash in a savings account and does float up and down.  I've never had an 'emergency' it wouldn't cover.

Forummm, the S&P 500 shed 46 percent from August 25, 2000, to October 4, 2002. Just five years later, during the housing bust, the S&P 500 lost 56 percent of its value from October 12, 2007, to March 6, 2009.  Now connect that with your statement, "I think even if you did lose your job at the same time the market crashed, it would be better in the long run to have your funds invested. Even if you get unlucky and have to sell it at 50% of peak value, over your lifetime those funds would probably have doubled and redoubled several times."

Where did the 'over your lifetime' come from?  Suppose you had FIRED 2 years before the 'emergency' came up and it came up during one of those drops.  If you had had $20k sitting in the bank it would still be $20k.  If you had to sell on the market, what was $20k would now be $10k.  So to get $20k you would need to sell what had been $40k. 

An 'emergency' is not a 'long run' issue it is a short term issue.  You cannot point to the long term as salvation.  Once you've sold, those shares are gone.  You can't look to the long term to build their value back up when they are gone.

It's the opportunity cost of the gains on all those positive years that your money could have been invested in anything other than cash versus the chance of a an emergency during a downside. Some people, depending on their assets and risk tolerance, are able to justify it easily. These people actually can look to the long term to build value. You also conveniently ignored the rest of his post in which he detailed that his emergency reserve has multiple strategies built in, credit, additional savings, and investments that can be tapped. That's pretty strong and requires less cash on hand.

Yes, but I would still HATE to be forced to sell stock at a deep discount "just" to generate some cash to cover an emergency.  (I'm still thinking it over, though!)

[matchewed]

I don't have what I would call an 'emergency reserve' as such.  I have income designated to cover expenses, income designated as disposable and income designated to savings/investing.  The disposable income does sit as cash in a savings account and does float up and down.  I've never had an 'emergency' it wouldn't cover.

Forummm, the S&P 500 shed 46 percent from August 25, 2000, to October 4, 2002. Just five years later, during the housing bust, the S&P 500 lost 56 percent of its value from October 12, 2007, to March 6, 2009.  Now connect that with your statement, "I think even if you did lose your job at the same time the market crashed, it would be better in the long run to have your funds invested. Even if you get unlucky and have to sell it at 50% of peak value, over your lifetime those funds would probably have doubled and redoubled several times."

Where did the 'over your lifetime' come from?  Suppose you had FIRED 2 years before the 'emergency' came up and it came up during one of those drops.  If you had had $20k sitting in the bank it would still be $20k.  If you had to sell on the market, what was $20k would now be $10k.  So to get $20k you would need to sell what had been $40k. 

An 'emergency' is not a 'long run' issue it is a short term issue.  You cannot point to the long term as salvation.  Once you've sold, those shares are gone.  You can't look to the long term to build their value back up when they are gone.

It's the opportunity cost of the gains on all those positive years that your money could have been invested in anything other than cash versus the chance of a an emergency during a downside. Some people, depending on their assets and risk tolerance, are able to justify it easily. These people actually can look to the long term to build value. You also conveniently ignored the rest of his post in which he detailed that his emergency reserve has multiple strategies built in, credit, additional savings, and investments that can be tapped. That's pretty strong and requires less cash on hand.

Yes, but I would still HATE to be forced to sell stock at a deep discount "just" to generate some cash to cover an emergency.  (I'm still thinking it over, though!)

Sure but on the flip side you're loving missing out on gains on 1 year of expenses. The nature of the market (so far) has been more positive years than negative. Your strategy then makes it so that one year worth of expenses will always be missing out on gains.

But honestly whatever lets you sleep at night and doesn't screw over yourself is the answer. Some people like having the cash some people are more risk tolerant. There is no right answer for everyone just a right answer for you.

[iamlittlehedgehog]

DH and I fall into the over cautious category. Right now we have 4k in the emergency fund with a goal of 12k. After that is built up we will be saving up to put 20k away for the inevitable kidney transplant and all the expenses that will bring.

[Janie]

Yes, but I would still HATE to be forced to sell stock at a deep discount "just" to generate some cash to cover an emergency.  (I'm still thinking it over, though!)

Take a look at how your emergency money would have done in the market vs in savings. http://dqydj.net/sp-500-return-calculator/

It also makes sense to look at the riskiness of one's current situation. An uninsured single earner family with young children and a mortgage in an unstable job market might want have more "emergency" money than a dual earner couple with grown kids, a paid off mortgage and substantial investments.

[Zinsch]

Pretty new mustachian here, but I currently have about 20K in a savings reserve, but would like to see it grow towards at least a years worth of salary (~80K) as I work in the Oil and Gas Industry which is notorious for layoffs (horray commodity driven industry!)

Glad to see what others are doing out there also!

Wouldn't it make more sense to have one year worth of expenses instead of current income as emergency reserve?