[Sohcahtoa82]

Seriously.

Everyone should do their damndest to get 6 months worth of bills into savings. This should be easy for well-paid tech workers.

I've been making tech money ($200-250K) for about 5 years now, and my savings is enough that I could ride out a job loss for at least a full year with no change in lifestyle. With some minor belt tightening (I eat out WAYYYY too much), I could go 2 years before I had to start worrying.

[ryandrake]

The point I'm trying to make is that even if you have savings and are eating into them, you should still be shitting your pants and acting as though those pants are on fire, because you're handling an emergency. That's why you call it your emergency fund.

If we are not employed, then we have N months until we are broke. This is true for what, 99.9% of us? Whether that N is a high or low number, the slope of the line is still downward and that makes it an emergency. Unless you are retired, and are hoping for N to be greater than your life expectancy.