Your emergency buffer: how much of your money is actually available?

Your net worth cannot pay a bill. One of its components can.

The emergency-buffer question is usually framed as "How many months should I keep in cash?" That invites a benchmark before the household has defined what the cash is protecting against. Reverse the order.

1. Start with core monthly expenses

The denominator matters. A buffer designed to protect the household from an income interruption should be compared with the expenses that would continue during that interruption — housing, health insurance, food, transport, debt service, childcare and other commitments that do not politely disappear when salary does.

Use your own core-expense number. A Swiss average cannot know your rent, children or mortgage.

2. Count only money that is genuinely available

Current and savings accounts are obvious. Some liquid investments may be accessible, but their value can move precisely when you would rather it did not. Pillar 2 and Pillar 3a are long-term assets with access restrictions. Home equity is valuable and notoriously bad at buying groceries on Tuesday.

The baseline should therefore distinguish accessible liquidity from total wealth. Do not make pension assets or the family home moonlight as an emergency fund.

3. Earmarked cash is already employed

If CHF 60,000 in cash is intended for a property purchase, education bill or tax payment, the household may technically own it but cannot spend all of it twice. Split "available buffer" from "cash reserved for known goals".

One pile of money should not quietly have three job descriptions.

4. Buffer needs are household-specific

Income stability, number of earners, dependants, insurance, notice periods, major planned expenses and access to other liquidity all change the resilience question. A two-income household with stable employment has a different fact pattern from a single-income household with variable compensation.

This is why Navinua avoids publishing a universal magic number. The useful target follows from the risk the household is trying to absorb.

5. The baseline needs two answers, not one

• How much accessible liquidity do we have now?
• How many months of our own core expenses does that represent?

Then add a third: is any of that liquidity already committed to a near-term goal?

Navinua rule — Liquidity is not the boring part of wealth. It is the part that buys time when the plan changes.

Useful source

• Budgetberatung Schweiz — budget examples and templates

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Next: separate accessible wealth from long-term wealth in Pensions and long-term wealth: what are you already building?