Your Numbers
How long to build it at different saving rates
| Extra per Week | Weeks to Goal |
|---|---|
| Enter your numbers above | |
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Get The Debt Machine Free →Why 8 weeks, not "3-6 months"
"Keep 3-6 months of expenses in your emergency fund" is advice written for people with salaried jobs and predictable income. It's not wrong, but for hourly workers, it's abstract enough to be useless.
Three months of expenses at $3,000/month is $9,000. For someone clearing $2,800/month after taxes, that goal takes a year or more to hit at a reasonable savings rate. It's easy to give up before you get there.
Eight weeks of your fixed bills is concrete. It's a specific number. It covers the most common emergencies: a car repair, a missed paycheck, a medical bill. It's achievable in 4-6 months at modest savings rates. When you hit it, you can expand the target. But 8 weeks first.
What counts as an emergency
The fund is for true emergencies: job loss, unexpected medical costs, major car repair, broken appliance. It's not for expected irregular expenses like car registration, holiday spending, or a vacation. Those need their own savings categories.
The discipline of keeping the emergency fund for emergencies only is what makes it work. The moment it becomes a general backup fund for overspending, you lose the protection it provides.
More detail: The Emergency Fund Rule for Hourly Workers →
Build the emergency fund and capture the 401k match at the same time. That's the W2W sequence.
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