How long your savings last without income.

18,000 in savings at 3,000/month spending = 6 months runway. Cut monthly to 2,200 (essentials only) and runway stretches to 8.2 months. Most job searches in professional roles take 3-6 months; senior roles can take 6-12. Emergency fund adequacy is the single most useful indicator of financial resilience after income loss.

Run it with sensible defaults

Using emergency fund of 18,000, other accessible savings of 0, monthly spending of 3,000, the calculation works out to 6.0 months. Nudge the inputs toward your own situation and the output recalculates instantly. The defaults are meant as a starting point, not a recommendation.

The levers in this calculation

The inputs — Emergency Fund, Other Accessible Savings, and Monthly Spending — do not pull with equal force. Not every input has equal weight. Flip one at a time toward extreme values to feel which ones move the needle most for your situation.

How the math works

Total savings divided by monthly spending. Assumes spending stays constant — reducing spending extends runway. The working is transparent — you can verify every step yourself in the formula section below. No black box, no opaque "proprietary model".

Spreading the cost

Starting earlier always costs less per month than starting late. That's the main lever this tool surfaces. Whatever the total, dividing it by the months until the event gives a monthly target that's easier to build into a budget.

What this doesn't capture

Life events generate side costs the figure doesn't include: time off work, lost income, travel for others, aftercare. Add 10–15% to the direct number as a buffer; the items you haven't thought of usually fill most of it.

Related calculations worth running

Plans get firmer when you triangulate. Alongside this one, the emergency fund calculator, the fire number calculator, and the bereavement financial calculator tend to come up in the same conversations. Running two or three together exposes inconsistencies in any single assumption — which is usually where the useful insight lives.