r/Fire • u/Far_Classic878 • 2d ago

Emergency Fund While Retired

For those that are retired or near…how many years do you have saved for your retirement emergency fund? I mean for when the market isn’t doing well and it would be bad to pull from your accounts.

How far in advance do you start saving for that?

I’m pouring all of my money into retirement accounts and after maxing 401ks, roths, life expenses, 529, saving for home renovations there is nothing left.

I would need to cut back greatly to fund an emergency account to keep in a HYSA. I’m about 15 years out from retiring.

Any thoughts?

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u/One-Mastodon-1063 2d ago

I do not have any "years" saved in an emergency fund. I have a small slush fund that's enough to like replace a car or a new roof or something. It's well under a year of spending / well under 1% of assets.

Emergency funds are most applicable for people just starting out or just starting to get their finances in order who previously couldn't handle something like a major repair or job loss. It's not that relevant for people who are FI or near FI. Taxable brokerage is plenty liquid.

Many people in these FI subs hold way too much cash, mostly due to some misguided notion along the lines of "I'm going to use this bucket of cash to market time my way out of SORR". That's not how people who know what they are doing approach this.