Sources verified · May 22, 2026

Your cash buffer, sized to your situation

Tell us your monthly fixed costs and a few things about your household. We’ll show a target range in months and dollars, your current coverage, and how long it would take to fill the gap.

New here? See it work with example numbers:

Housing, utilities, insurance, debt minimums, essential groceries — the floor your household needs to keep running. Not your full spending.

Cash you already have set aside for this. Leave at 0 if you're starting from scratch.

About your income
Optional — only if it applies to you

How much you can put aside each month. We'll show how long it would take to fill the range.

No ads or lead-gen

What this tool does and doesn’t do

  • Does: month-multiplier model based on the convention documented by the CFPB Emergency Savings guidance and the FINRA Investor Education Foundation. The lower bound is 3 months plus risk additions for variable income, single-earner households, and dependents; the upper bound is the lower bound plus 3 months, capped at 12. Includes a time-to-fill projection at the user’s savings rate.
  • Doesn’t yet: full-spending modeling (we use fixed costs only by design), bank integrations to read the current balance automatically, account- type guidance (HYSA vs. money-market), prefill from Cash Flow Lens (queued under MON-66), or coordination with the upcoming Savings Rate Reality tool.
  • This is a planning estimate. It is not a financial plan. The exact months reflect one defensible parameterization of standard conventions — adjust upward if your situation is more variable than the categories above describe.