Emergency fund sizer
Size an emergency fund from your actual circumstances rather than repeating "six months" — because six months is right for some people and dangerously short for others.
Runs entirely in your browserRuns entirely on your device — nothing you type is sent anywhere. Educational only, and not investment advice.
How to use this calculator
Each step names a control you will find on screen above.
- Monthly household expenses
What it costs to run the house — not your income, and not including investments you would pause in a crisis.
- Monthly EMIs
Loans do not pause when income stops. This is the part that turns a difficult few months into a default, and it belongs in the target.
- Your income type
A salaried government employee and a commission-based professional need very different buffers. Replaceability of income is the main driver.
- People depending on you and Earning members
One earner supporting four people needs a far deeper fund than two earners supporting two — the second income is itself a form of insurance.
Worked example: One earner, three dependants, a home loan
Household expenses of ₹50,000 a month plus a ₹25,000 EMI. A single salaried earner supporting three people, with ₹2 lakh saved so far.
What to enter
- Monthly household expenses
- ₹50,000
- Monthly EMIs
- ₹25,000
- Your income
- Salaried, single earner
- People depending on you
- 3
- Saved so far
- ₹2,00,000
What it shows you
- Monthly outflow
- ₹75,000
- Months recommended
- 9
- Target fund
- ₹6,75,000
- Shortfall
- ₹4,75,000
- Where it belongs
- Sweep FD or liquid fund
raised by the EMI and the single income
Where this is taught
A calculator gives you a number. These explain what the number means and when it misleads you.
- Risk & Psychology13 minChoosing what to sell when you need the moneyLife presents a rupee figure and a date. Which holding funds it is decided in about four minutes, usually by whichever sale feels least like an admission.
- Market Basics10 minThe emergency fund that has to come firstNot a round number of months. A figure worked out from how replaceable your income is — and the reason people sell good investments at the worst possible time.
- Market Basics11 minInsurance is not an investmentULIPs, endowment and money-back policies bundle protection with returns and deliver both badly. How to separate the two, and what the bundle actually costs you.
- Market Basics11 minHow much life cover, and why only termA figure built from what your family would actually have to replace — and why every product that mixes insurance with investment does both badly.
- Risk & Psychology14 minThe rupee counted twiceTwo plans, written eleven months apart, in two different apps. One says the ₹6,80,000 in the sweep account is eight months of emergency cover. The other says it is the shortfall on the flat. Both are internally correct, both read as funded, and between them they are short by exactly the whole amount.