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[EU] How many months savings do you consider enough? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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As the title says I am trying to see where people stand on this. Obviously this is all personal preference. But that is what I am after.

After depleting our savings when buying our apartment 2 years ago, we’re about to cross 6 months liquid savings in just plain old savings account with ability to immediately withdraw money.

(To clarify that is 6 month assuming 0 income, which is very unlikely given the social system of our country - so realistically we have even more in savings.)

As you can imagine, the interest in this account is not great, so I want to set a limit as to when we stop dumping every spare penny into the savings account and begin doing other things (likely try to invest).

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’m not sure I follow your reasoning.

I mean, 1% interest is admittedly criminal, but it’s still better than the 0% in checking. And a month’s wages feels like a lot—to me—to leave entirely idle.

Everything else though sounds like you’re well and ahead of the game though! Kudos for balancing your portfolio. 👍

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

A big part of that decision is honestly that we live in a very old house, and a few times we have needed to buy new appliances or pay $10k+ in a ≤24hr. emergency, so we try to keep roughly that amount as liquid as possible. Since that's earning zero and the MMF is nearly as liquid as savings, we just keep all the rest in the higher-interest options, and none at all in a traditional savings account. It's just been the most convenient and highest yield, lowest risk, most easily liquidated option, with the ease of liquidity cutting minimally into returns while MMF rates are so high.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Okay, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying. 🙂