Enter your essential monthly expenses - the minimum you need to cover if you lost your income.
Target Amount
£19,800.00
6 months
10% complete
£2,000.00
10% complete
£17,800.00
36 mo
August 2029
An emergency fund is built one budgeted month at a time
iBudget shows what is actually left over each month, so the amount above stops being a guess.
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Milestones
- Complete!
Starter Emergency Fund
£1,000.00
3 Months of Expenses
£9,900.00
6 Months of Expenses (Recommended)
£19,800.00
| Monthly Savings | Time to Goal | Goal Date |
|---|---|---|
| £200.00/month | 89 months | January 2034 |
| £300.00/month | 60 months | August 2031 |
| £500.00/month | 36 months | August 2029 |
| £750.00/month | 24 months | August 2028 |
| £1,000.00/month | 18 months | February 2028 |
How this calculator works
Two lines of arithmetic, applied to your own essential expenses rather than an average household's.
The formula
Target = E × M Gap = max(0, Target − S) Months = ⌈ Gap ÷ P ⌉ Progress = min(100, round(S ÷ Target × 100))- E
- Total monthly essential expenses — the sum of the seven input fields (housing, utilities, food, transport, insurance, minimum debt payments, other essentials). Any blank or invalid field counts as zero.
- M
- Months of coverage from the slider — a whole number between 1 and 12, defaulting to 6.
- S
- Your current emergency savings balance.
- P
- What you put aside each month. If this is zero or empty, no timeline is produced and the goal date reads Never.
- ⌈ ⌉
- Rounds up to the next whole month, so the final month of the plan is usually a partial contribution.
No interest, growth or inflation is applied at any point. The milestones underneath the result compare your current balance against a fixed starter fund of 1,000, three months of expenses and six months of expenses — all measured against your balance, not against the target you selected.
The calculator performs one multiplication and one division, and the answer is only ever as good as the seven numbers you put into it. It adds the seven essential expense fields into a single monthly figure, multiplies that figure by the number of months on the slider, and calls the result your target. Every other number on the screen is derived from that one. Each field is read as a number and anything blank or unparseable is treated as zero, so an empty box quietly lowers your target rather than blocking the calculation.
It then subtracts what you already have. The gap is floored at zero, so once your balance passes the target the shortfall stops going negative and the result is labelled fully funded instead. Months to goal divides the remaining gap by your monthly contribution and always rounds up to a whole month, which means the final month in the projection is usually a partial one. If the monthly contribution is zero or empty there is no rate to divide by, so the tool shows Never rather than pretending the answer is zero months.
The progress bar is your current balance divided by the target, rounded to the nearest whole percent and capped at 100. The three milestones — a starter fund of 1,000, three months of expenses and six months of expenses — are each compared against your current balance rather than against the target you selected, so where the slider sits does not change them. They normally tick off in that order, although a household with essentials below about 330 a month reaches the three-month milestone before the fixed 1,000 starter fund. The three-month and six-month milestones move whenever you edit an expense field; the starter fund never does.
There is no interest anywhere in this: the projection is pure addition, with no growth, no compounding and no adjustment for inflation. The savings-rate table at the bottom applies the same division to five fixed monthly amounts so you can see what a different contribution would do to the date, and it appears only when there is a gap left to close and a contribution to close it with. The goal date is today's date advanced by that number of whole months, shown as a month and year.
A worked example
One US household, run end to end. A UK household with £2,400 of monthly essentials would follow exactly the same steps to a £14,400 six-month target.
Six months of cover for a single-earner household
Worked example- Housing (rent or mortgage)
- $1,800
- Utilities
- $250
- Food and groceries
- $700
- Transportation
- $550
- Insurance
- $400
- Minimum debt payments
- $250
- Other essentials (childcare, medical)
- $200
- Total monthly essentials (E)
- $4,150
- Months of coverage (M)
- 6
- Target = $4,150 × 6
- $24,900
- Current savings (S)
- $5,000
- Gap = $24,900 − $5,000
- $19,900
- Monthly saving (P)
- $650
- Progress = 5,000 ÷ 24,900
- 20%
The exact division is 30.6 months, and the calculator rounds up to 31 — the last month only needs $400, not the full $650. Nudging the slider from six months to four would cut the target to $16,600 and the timeline to 18 months, which is the single biggest lever on this page. Adding $150 a month instead, at 6 months of cover, brings it down to 25 months.
How to read your result
What a good number looks like, and what the sensible next move is at each stage.
Read the percentage first, then the timeline. Anything under about 15% means the fund is not yet doing the job it exists to do, and the priority is a small buffer rather than the full target — enough to absorb a car repair without reaching for a card. Between roughly 15% and 50% you have a real cushion for one-off shocks but not for a lost income, which is the point where clearing expensive debt usually beats adding to the fund. Above 50% you are covering a genuine income gap, and the sensible move is to finish the job slowly rather than divert the money elsewhere.
The timeline matters as much as the target. A 31-month build is not a failure, but it does suggest the fund is being paid out of whatever happens to be left over, and leftovers are the least reliable source of money in any budget. If the date looks too far away, the fastest lever is rarely the contribution: it is checking whether every expense box is honestly essential, and whether the slider is set higher than your circumstances require. Dropping from nine months to six cuts a third off the target immediately.
It also helps to know how unusual a full fund is. Being halfway there feels like failure, and is in fact ahead of a large share of households in every market this site covers.
55%
US adults with three months of expenses set aside
The Federal Reserve's rainy-day measure, unchanged on 2024 and below the 59% high of 2021. Survey of nearly 13,000 adults, fielded October 2025.
Source: Federal Reserve Board, SHED 2025
30%
US adults who could not cover three months by any means
Including borrowing and selling assets, not just savings. Expressed as a share of all adults, so it is directly comparable with the 55% above.
Source: Federal Reserve Board, SHED 2025
12%
US adults who could not pay a $400 expense at all
By any method whatsoever. A further group would cover it only by carrying a card balance or borrowing from family.
Source: Federal Reserve Board, SHED 2025
42%
UK adults who could not cover three months if income stopped
The FCA calls this a limited savings buffer. Self-reported, base of 17,950 UK adults, fieldwork to May 2024. Up from 41% in 2022.
Source: FCA Financial Lives Survey 2024
25%
UK households unable to pay an unexpected £850 bill
Great Britain rather than the whole UK; responding sample 3,780 adults, May 2026. The £850 threshold is asked repeatedly, so it is comparable month to month.
24%
Americans with no emergency savings at all
A commercial survey rather than an official statistic — 2,564 US adults, fieldwork by YouGov in December 2025. Attribute it to Bankrate.
Two more things worth calibrating against: what a household actually spends in a year, which tells you whether your monthly essentials figure is plausible, and what your money earns once it is sitting somewhere. The averages below are total spending rather than essentials only, so treat them as an upper bound on the monthly figure you typed, not a target.
$78,535
Average total annual spending, US household
About $6,545 a month, but this is all spending by a consumer unit, not essentials only — your essentials figure should be well below it. Mean rather than median, 2024 calendar year.
Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey
£676.60
Average weekly spending, UK household
Around £2,930 a month, again covering all spending rather than essentials. Nominal, financial year to March 2025, from a sample of 5,000 households.
Source: ONS Family Spending in the UK
0.38%
US national average savings account rate
The average across all FDIC-insured institutions in July 2026, dragged down by large branch banks. Competitive online accounts pay multiples of this, and the difference is free money on a fund you hold for years.
1.65%
Average rate actually paid on UK instant-access balances
The effective rate across the existing stock of household sight deposits in June 2026, against a Bank Rate of 3.75%. Best-buy easy-access accounts pay considerably more.
$250,000
US deposit insurance limit
Per depositor, per insured bank, per ownership category — so a household can be covered for more than this across joint and single accounts.
Source: FDIC, Deposit Insurance
£120,000
UK deposit protection limit
Per person, per authorised firm, raised from £85,000 on 1 December 2025. Accounts sharing one banking licence count as a single firm.
What this calculator does not account for
Every assumption the arithmetic makes, stated plainly, so you know which direction the answer is wrong in.
No interest, no inflation, and no tax on either
The projection adds your contributions to your balance and stops there. Nothing compounds, nothing grows, and the target sits in today's money, so a goal three years out will buy slightly less than it does now. Because no interest is modelled, no tax on interest is modelled either — relevant in the US, where savings interest is taxable income, and in the UK, where the Personal Savings Allowance and cash ISAs change the picture.
It assumes you save the same amount every month
Real saving is lumpy. Bonuses, tax refunds, a raise, a month where the car needs work and you save nothing — none of that is modelled. The savings-rate table exists partly to compensate: it shows what a higher or lower contribution does to the finish date, so you can bracket the answer rather than trust a single line.
It assumes income stops completely
The target is your full essential outgoings multiplied by months, with no allowance for unemployment insurance, statutory redundancy or severance pay, sick pay, a partner's continuing salary, or benefits. If any of those would keep arriving, your true gap is smaller than the number on the screen. That is a deliberate margin of safety rather than an oversight, but it is worth knowing which way the error runs.
Seven expense boxes, and no childcare or medical line
Childcare, prescriptions, pet costs, alimony and school fees all have to be folded into Other Essentials. For households where childcare is the second largest bill after housing, that single box can carry a lot of weight, and it is easy to under-enter it.
The fixed figures are not converted between currencies
The calculator formats amounts with whichever currency it detects, but the starter-fund milestone of 1,000 and the five rows of the savings-rate table (200, 300, 500, 750 and 1,000 a month) are the same numerals in every market. $1,000 and £1,000 are not the same amount of money, and neither is A$1,000. Read those as illustrative rather than calibrated to your country.
Rounding is one-directional
Months to goal always rounds up to a whole month, so a 30.6-month answer is displayed as 31. Progress is rounded to the nearest whole percent and capped at 100, so a fund at 99.6% shows as 100% while the shortfall figure beside it is still above zero. The goal date is calculated by advancing today's date by whole months, which can slide across a month boundary if today is the 29th, 30th or 31st — treat the month and year as approximate.
It knows nothing about the rest of your balance sheet, and stores nothing
Assets you could sell, a home equity line, family who would help and a credit limit you have never touched are all invisible here. That is the right default for a safety-net tool, since none of them are guaranteed to be there on the day, but it means the answer is a cash target rather than a full picture of your resilience. Nothing is stored either: everything is computed in your browser from what is currently on screen.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I have in an emergency fund?
Six months of essential expenses is the sensible default for most households, with three months as a floor and nine to twelve months if your income is unpredictable. The number that matters is your own essentials, not an average: if your essentials are $4,150 a month, six months is $24,900, and if they are £2,400 a month, six months is £14,400. Set the slider to the tier that matches your job security, not the one that produces a comfortable-looking figure.
Which expenses go in the boxes, and which stay out?
Include only what you would still have to pay with no income arriving: rent or mortgage, utilities, groceries, transport to interviews and appointments, insurance premiums, and the contractual minimum on every debt. Leave out restaurants, holidays, subscriptions you could cancel in an afternoon, and anything you would obviously stop buying in month one of a crisis. Padding the boxes with discretionary spending inflates your target by however many months you have selected — six times whatever you added, at the default setting — which is the fastest way to make the goal feel impossible.
My essentials do not fit the seven categories. Where do childcare, medical costs and pet bills go?
Put them in Other Essentials and add them together before typing. The calculator only ever uses the sum of the seven fields, so the labels are a prompt rather than a constraint, and nothing changes in the maths if childcare sits in the same box as prescriptions. If Other Essentials ends up being your largest line, that is worth knowing on its own.
Should I choose three, six or twelve months?
Three months is defensible only with two comparable incomes, stable roles, no dependants and little debt. Six months suits a single earner, a household where one salary carries most of the load, or anyone with dependants. Nine to twelve months is right if you are self-employed, on commission, working in a specialised field where a replacement role takes a long time to find, or the sole earner for a family.
Does the calculator include interest earned on the money?
No. The projection is pure addition: your current balance plus your monthly contribution, month after month, with no interest and no compounding. That makes the timeline slightly pessimistic, though not by much at current instant-access rates, and it means the calculator never overstates how quickly you will get there. It also ignores inflation, so your target is expressed in today's money.
Should I pay off debt first or build the fund first?
Build a small starter fund first, then clear expensive debt, then finish the full fund. Average US credit card APRs reached 25.2% on general purpose cards in 2024 according to the CFPB, and the UK representative rate was 24.71% in July 2026 according to the Bank of England, so paying down a card beats any savings account by a wide margin. The reason to hold a starter fund alongside the debt is that with zero savings the next unexpected bill goes straight back on the card, and you never get ahead.
Where should I keep an emergency fund?
Somewhere you can reach within a day or two, at a different institution from your current account, and inside the deposit protection limit. That means an instant-access or high-yield savings account, not the stock market, and not a fixed-term product that locks the money up for the period you are most likely to need it. Do not accept the default rate: the FDIC national average savings rate was 0.38% in July 2026, and UK banks paid an average of 1.65% across existing instant-access balances, both far below what competitive accounts offer.
Is a $1,000 or £1,000 starter fund still the right first milestone?
It is a reasonable psychological first target, and it is the milestone hardcoded into the tool above, but treat it as a checkpoint rather than an answer. A $1,000 buffer covers a car repair or a boiler replacement; it does not cover a month of rent in most markets. Note that the tool shows the same 1,000 figure with whichever currency symbol it detects, so it is not converted between markets.
Why does the goal date say Never?
Usually because you have left the monthly savings field empty or set it to zero, and no amount of time closes a gap at a rate of nothing per month. It is deliberately different from showing zero months, which would look like you were already finished. Enter even a small monthly figure and the timeline and the savings-rate table both appear. There is one other way to see it: empty every expense box and the target becomes zero, so there is nothing to count down to and the tool says Never rather than Done.
Does a partner's income change the target?
It changes the tier, not the arithmetic. If two comparable incomes support the household, only one is likely to stop at a time, so the fund is bridging a partial income loss rather than a total one and three to four months can be enough. If one salary covers most of the essentials, size the fund against that salary stopping and use six to nine months. Enter the household's full essential outgoings either way, because the bills do not shrink when one income does.
What actually counts as an emergency?
Something urgent, necessary and genuinely unforeseen: job loss, a medical bill, a car or boiler failure, an emergency journey. A sale, a holiday, Christmas and the annual insurance renewal are none of those things, because you knew they were coming. Predictable irregular costs belong in a separate sinking fund, which is exactly the distinction that keeps an emergency fund intact long enough to be useful.
Can a credit card limit or a line of credit count instead?
No, and it is worth being blunt about why. Credit limits can be cut without notice, are often reduced precisely when your circumstances change, and turn a temporary income gap into an expensive long-term debt. Access to credit is a genuine backstop and worth having, but it belongs after the cash fund, not instead of it.
Read next
Read next
- How Much Emergency Fund Do I Need? Work Out Your NumberThe full version of the tier decision above — by household type, by country, and how to build it from zero.
- Where to Keep Your Emergency Fund in the UKEasy-access savings, cash ISAs or Premium Bonds, compared on access speed and FSCS protection.
- Pay Yourself First: The Savings Strategy That Actually WorksHow to make the monthly contribution automatic so the timeline above is not funded out of leftovers.
- Budgeting on a freelance or irregular incomeWhy self-employed and commission-based households need the nine to twelve month tier, and how to fund it.
- The 50/30/20 Budget Rule: How It Works, With Real NumbersWhere the monthly savings figure comes from in the first place, and how much of it is realistically available.
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