Emergency Fund for DINKs

[bjl584]

I would advise against saving everything that you can, as least as far as an emergency fund is concerned. You must try to figure out some baseline of how much you should keep in an EF fund depending on your position in life, plans, current financial position etc. Anything above and beyond that would serve you better by investing elsewhere or paying down debts.

[threebeansalad]

Thanks everyone for the advice. To answer some questions, I'm all for "saving all that we can", but I'm trying to figure out what it will all be used for. A major goal is to buy a house. Obviously, we'll use most of our non-retirement savings as a down payment, so I'm trying to figure out how much to reserve as an EF. We have been renting a house, so we have much of what one needs when they own a home (ie washer, dryer, lawn mower, snow shovels, etc etc).

[Tree0164]

With relocating and getting new jobs, I would do atleast 6 months of expenses.

[Aleta]

Once that you decide upon an amount and time, you can put it into a high paying savings account and the interest should keep up with inflation. Notice that I said, should but always doesn't. This past year we had to add more money into the EF because of health insurance increases. So, you will always have to stay on top of it at least once a year.