The balance on our savings account read $16,812 on Thursday morning, and I took a screenshot of it like it was a sunset. Ben looked over my shoulder and said, "Great. Now stop checking it."
That number is three months of our expenses. It took 22 months, two setbacks and one automatic transfer I set up in June 2024 and then tried very hard to forget about.
How we built it
Before June 2024 we had "savings," which mostly meant a few hundred dollars that got borrowed from every time a car needed something. That June, five months into my new job, I set up a transfer of $300 from each of my paychecks into a separate high-yield savings account. Then I added one rule: tax refunds go to the fund until it's full.
| June 2024 to April 2026 | Amount |
|---|---|
| Automatic transfers, $300 on 48 paydays | $14,400 |
| Tax refund, spring 2025 | $2,240 |
| Half of this year's refund, March 2026 | $820 |
| Interest | $522 |
| Emergency vet visit, November 2024 | -$860 |
| AC capacitor, July 2025 | -$310 |
| Balance this week | $16,812 |
The transfer runs on payday, not at the end of the month, and that turned out to matter more than the amount. Money that sits in checking for two weeks finds a reason to be spent. Money that leaves the same morning it arrives never gets the chance.
The two setbacks were exactly what the fund is for, and both still felt like losing ground. In November 2024, Moose ate most of a dish towel and spent a Sunday night at the emergency vet. In July 2025, the AC capacitor quit on a 96-degree afternoon. Both times the money was there, nobody had to put anything on a card, and both times I watched the balance drop and grumbled for a week.
I processed more 401(k) hardship withdrawal paperwork in HR than I like to remember. Very few were for things nobody could have predicted. Most were for ordinary bad luck that arrived before there was a cushion.
How we picked the number, and where it lives
Three months of expenses means $16,800 for us, or $5,600 a month. I got there by taking a normal month from our budget spreadsheet, about $4,800 once the savings lines come out, and adding roughly $800 for health insurance we'd have to buy on our own if my job went away, since our coverage runs through my company. Three months felt right for two working parents in two different fields. If one of us loses a job, the other paycheck still comes.
The account is at an online bank, separate from our checking. It has no debit card, and moving money out takes a day or two. That's on purpose. Not because I don't trust us, but because I know us. The interest has been a nice surprise: $522 over 22 months, for doing nothing at all.
What counts as an emergency in our house
We use three questions, and a bill has to pass all three:
- Did we know it was coming? If yes, it isn't an emergency. Car tags, Christmas and the termite bond live in our sinking fund.
- Does it keep one of us from working, keep Harper from school, or make the house unsafe or unlivable? An AC failure in July counts. A slow dishwasher does not.
- Will waiting until the next paycheck make it worse? If it can wait two weeks without costing more, it waits.
That puts a job loss, a car repair that keeps me off I-565, a medical bill bigger than the HSA balance and Moose at 11 p.m. on the yes side. A sale at Nordstrom Rack, the beach week in June and a "really good deal" on anything land firmly on the no side.
We celebrated the way we celebrate most things around here, with Friday pizza. It came out of the eating-out line, not the fund. Harper wanted to know why we were celebrating money we aren't allowed to spend, which is honestly a fair summary of the whole idea.
The $300 per payday isn't stopping. The next stop is four months, more slowly, because the transfer is the habit, and I don't want to break a habit just because we reached a number.
Three months is the target that fits our jobs and our house. Yours might be bigger or smaller, and that's a call to make for your own situation, not one to copy from mine.
