jIM_OHIO - the 6% number was just used in my model, not based on actuals. I was trying to be conservative when forecasting but I will move it to 8% for now and track the results.
12 months seems like a pretty hefty emergency fund. We do have some levers to work with if one of us lost our jobs. $2600 in child care costs would go away right of the bat. We could also reduce / eliminate $401K investing. We could also reduce "overpaying" our mortgage and HELOC. Student Loans could be deferred. The bottom line is that we could live off of one salary if we needed to.
If both of us were to lose our jobs at the same time, we would have about 6 months to find new jobs based on severence, unemployment and current savings. I understand that the concept of the EF is planning for worst case scenarios, but shouldn't you also factor in the liklihood of the emergencies occuring. I would think you would want to carry a higher EF if you were relying on one income because there is a single point of failure or if you felt there was a risk of losing your job.
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