Emergency Fund Calculator (Free)

Monthly essential expenses ($)

Months of cushion

Already saved ($)

You can save per month ($)

—Your target fund

—Still to save

—Time to fully funded

Model: target = essential expenses × months of cushion; timeline assumes a 4% APY savings account compounding monthly. Educational tool — not individualized advice.

Why "essentials," not income

An emergency fund replaces your survival costs, not your lifestyle: rent, groceries, utilities, insurance, minimum debt payments. Counting only essentials makes the target smaller and reachable — and a reachable target gets funded.

Start with one month, then build. Related: the 50/30/20 budget, where this fund is the 20%'s first job.