--- title: Emergency Funds description: An emergency fund is a dedicated cash reserve set aside for unplanned financial expenses. Learners will understand how to calculate their target savings amount, choose the right liquid accounts, and establish a disciplined plan to build financial security. category: finance-economics subcategory: personal-finance difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/emergency-funds --- # Emergency Funds An emergency fund is a dedicated cash reserve set aside for unplanned financial expenses. Learners will understand how to calculate their target savings amount, choose the right liquid accounts, and establish a disciplined plan to build financial security. ## Available Resources 1 Courses • 6 Websites • 1 Papers ## Websites ### 1. r/personalfinance Wiki Community-maintained wiki of the r/personalfinance subreddit, built around its widely cited flowchart for ordering financial priorities. Explains budgeting, emergency funds, employer retirement matches, debt payoff and tax-advantaged accounts so readers can decide where each dollar should go next. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/index **Tags:** personal-finance, budgeting, emergency-fund, retirement-accounts ### 2. Khan Academy Finance Khan Academy's free finance and capital markets course of short videos on interest and debt, housing, inflation, taxes, financial statements, stocks and bonds, retirement accounts, banking and derivatives. Gives beginners working intuition for everyday money decisions and how securities markets operate. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-finance **Tags:** time-value-of-money, interest-and-debt, inflation, stocks-and-bonds, financial-statements, capital-markets ### 3. An essential guide to building an emergency fund **Author:** Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Federal regulator guide structured around six questions: what an emergency fund is, why it matters, how much to save, how to build it, where to keep it, and when to spend it. Includes downloadable savings-plan and cash-flow worksheets. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.consumerfinance.gov/an-essential-guide-to-building-an-emergency-fund/ **Tags:** emergency-fund, savings-plan, cash-flow, personal-finance, cfpb ### 4. Emergency fund — Bogleheads Wiki **Author:** Bogleheads community contributors Wiki article treating the emergency fund as a liquidity allocation problem: sizing as a multiple of monthly expenses, comparing money market funds, savings accounts, CDs and I-bonds, and weighing tiered structures against the cash drag of holding idle reserves. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Emergency_fund **Tags:** emergency-fund, liquidity, money-market-funds, i-bonds, personal-finance ### 5. r/personalfinance Prime Directive: How to Handle $ **Author:** r/personalfinance moderators and community Community-maintained flowchart ordering financial priorities from budgeting through retirement. Step 1 covers emergency fund sizing (3-6 months, 9-12 if income is variable, $1,000 placeholder while paying down high-interest debt) and account selection. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/commontopics/ **Tags:** emergency-fund, financial-priorities, debt-payoff, budgeting, personal-finance ### 6. nerdwallet.com NerdWallet is a personal finance site that offers independent product reviews and side-by-side comparisons of financial products. It also features expert guidance, budgeting and investing content, and practical tools and calculators for credit cards, loans, mortgages, insurance, banking, and more. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://nerdwallet.com **Tags:** websites, business-entrepreneurship, finance ## Papers ### 1. Weathering Volatility 2.0: A Monthly Stress Test to Guide Savings **Author:** Diana Farrell, Fiona Greig, Chenxi Yu Administrative-data study of six million Chase checking accounts, 2013-2018, deriving the cash buffer families need to survive a simultaneous income dip and spending spike. Finds roughly six weeks of take-home income required; 65 percent of families fall short. **Difficulty:** Advanced | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.jpmorganchase.com/content/dam/jpmc/jpmorgan-chase-and-co/institute/pdf/institute-volatility-cash-buffer-report.pdf **Tags:** emergency-fund, cash-buffer, income-volatility, household-finance, consumer-spending-data ## Courses ### 1. Personal & Family Financial Planning Personal and Family Financial Planning will address many critical personal financial management topics in order to help you learn prudent habits both while in school and throughout your lifetime. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/family-planning **Tags:** courses, personal-development, personal-finance --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/emergency-funds