Last checked 3 September 2026
An emergency fund is a reserve of readily accessible cash held specifically to cover unexpected expenses or a loss of income, kept separate from money earmarked for anything else.
The defining property is accessibility, not return. An emergency fund sits in a savings or money-market account precisely so its value is certain on the day it is needed, which is often the day markets are also down. Invested money is not an emergency fund, because emergencies and market declines correlate.
It is the mechanism that keeps a temporary problem from becoming a permanent one. Without it, a broken car becomes credit-card debt at 20% and a redundancy becomes a forced sale of long-term holdings at whatever price the market happens to offer that week.
The usual sizing guidance is three to six months of essential expenses — which is really a statement about runway, expressed in a form that is easier to act on.
selftickr turns your net worth into a stock — a symbol, a daily change, a rating and a chart. Manual entry, no bank connection, private until you decide otherwise.
Join the waitlist