We don't have an emergency fund as there is no point having savings if you are in debt (we have a big mortgage). Instead we are overpaying the revolving credit portion of our mortgage so that we can draw on those overpayments should the worst happen.

This way our "savings" are effectively earning us interest at 5.5% tax-free - and you would be hard pushed to find a savings account giving you a better rate of return to stick some "what-if" money in!

I'm a student, and while I live very comfortably off about $250 a week total, I could do it with $180-$200 if I really needed to. Assuming $200 a week of total outgoings (rent, power, phone, food, and a little petrol), I've got about 10 weeks worth of savings that I'd be happy to use to get by on. This is mainly accumulated from summer savings - intended for other use (holidays etc) but could be used to live off if necessary.

Doing a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, I'd have at least 6 months' worth of savings - hopefully more, if we were to live extra frugally. Just a word of caution with regards your HP, etc, insurance - many of the credit card insurance schemes that the banks offer to you are best part of useless: they will pay something like 10% off your outstanding balance each month for 6 month, whereas a lot of people assume they'll pay off the outstanding balance completely. It pays to read the fine-print, as you may be getting much less cover than you think.

I lost my job last year and am still recovering from it. For savings I would recommend about 2-3 months worth of income saved up.

The financial safety net depends a bit on your own personal circumstances.

If you have a husband/wife and/or kids also depending on the income being brought in then the safety net should probably be 3-6 months.

Whether two months is enough is dubious - unless you are a highly skilled individual who can quickly regain employment.

Keep working at it and you can get there too! ;-)

We are fortunate enough to be debt free, and have significant cash savings (several years expenses), and this situation does do a lot to ease any potential financial stress.

My redundancy is going to cover my share of the living costs (for up to 12 months based on our budget). Or if I get a new job quickly then it will pay off our private loan and my student loan. Starting a new job debt free will make up for the likely drop in income.

My wife and I have tended towards the "three months take home pay" approach, but that is a lot of money to save. We're well on the way to saving that much, but we have been using some of those savings for travel and other expenses. I guess that the "emergency" part is probably about 10K - we wouldn't let the balance go below that except on an emergency. We'll save more when we get our student loans paid off, but mine is still larger than Greer's (and accruing interest!) so that won't be for a while at least. Of our "savings" budget, about one quarter goes to the emergency/travel account, and the rest to paying off the student loans.

Every situation is different. In our case, it is unlikely that my wife and I would both lose our jobs at the same time; that helps us feel more secure with our current savings. On the other hand, because we live in America, if one of us were to lose his/her job, we might face a whole lot of additional expenses changing visa status (from holder of a work visa to spouse of a work visa holder). These fees could run to a couple of thousand dollars.

I sort of have an emergency fund of around 6k but I won't touch it unless there really is no other choice.. thankfully a cushy government job with an excellent union means that my employers have to jump through a lot of hoops with job offers if they get rid of my current position. Currently I am also the only one who knows what I do which makes me slightly indispensible.

We are getting rid of debt at the moment, but also going to Oz for a holiday in a few weeks for a family thing. So our savings account is a bit empty at the moment, that plus a new car after the last one died! We are also saving toward our first overseas holiday next year which while some would consider it a 'nice to have' we consider it a 'must do' before we settle down to the house-buying family-having stage of life. We would probably struggle if I got made redundant as I'm the bigger earner, but could pay the debt off, and survive on one income for a month or two I think. Life would pretty much suck though! I've just done the numbers on 3m income for the both of us and we need to get into a savings frame of mind, even just a little bit on top of our savings for the OE - anything is helpful right!?

Come on your in NZ, havent you heard of the dole?