With only 1 year of expenses, I would probably get a larger safety net.
That’s because since expenses can go up dramatically, and income can change, a year of current expenses is much much less than would seem required to keep me safe.
For instance, while it is unlikely that I would receive a crippling injury that would be uncovered by insurance and that would lead to breaking up my marriage, since I have good insurance and a wife who cares for me deeply, It is certainly a forseeable set of events (It has happened to other people), and if that happened I would blow through a year of current expenses far too quickly since I would go from a 2 income to 0 income family with a new set of large bills.
I guess another way of expressing it is that my safety net would probably protect me from 1 bad event at the moment… but it wouldn’t protect me from 2 consecutive bad events. And since it isn’t that much harder to get a second safety net if you have the first already, I’d probably keep reinforcing it.
With only 1 year of expenses, I would probably get a larger safety net. That’s because since expenses can go up dramatically, and income can change, a year of current expenses is much much less than would seem required to keep me safe.
For instance, while it is unlikely that I would receive a crippling injury that would be uncovered by insurance and that would lead to breaking up my marriage, since I have good insurance and a wife who cares for me deeply, It is certainly a forseeable set of events (It has happened to other people), and if that happened I would blow through a year of current expenses far too quickly since I would go from a 2 income to 0 income family with a new set of large bills.
I guess another way of expressing it is that my safety net would probably protect me from 1 bad event at the moment… but it wouldn’t protect me from 2 consecutive bad events. And since it isn’t that much harder to get a second safety net if you have the first already, I’d probably keep reinforcing it.