Skip to content
Valmonk

Buffer

How long could you actually last with no income?

Sized on what you have to spend, less the months your notice period already covers.

Emergency fund

₹
Sized on what you spend, less the months your notice period already covers.
Sized on income instead
₹6,00,000
  • covered by your notice period33%
  • covered by what you have saved37%
  • not covered yet30%
  • Essentials ₹45,000
  • Notice 2 mo
Valmonkvalmonk.com/fund · not advice

The link carries your numbers, so whoever opens it sees this exact result. Nothing is saved on our side.

Your numbers, your assumptions. Not advice. We can't see the rest of your life. What that means.

Rent, EMIs, food, bills, transport. Everything that does not stop when the income does, and nothing that does.

₹1L

Money you could reach this week without selling anything at a loss

months

Counted from the day the income is at risk, not from the day it stops.

What this assumes

All editable. Change one and the answer changes with it.

months

Income keeps arriving through it, or is paid in lieu, so it is runway before the fund is touched. Rules of thumb imported from American personal finance ignore this, because employment there is largely at-will.

₹1L

Used only to show what a calculator sizing on income would have told you. It does not change your target.

How this works, and where the numbers come from

Six months of salary is the wrong quantity

A buffer exists to cover what you have to spend when income stops, not to replace the income. Somebody taking home ₹1,00,000 and spending ₹45,000 on essentials is usually told to hold ₹6,00,000. The figure that does the job is ₹2,70,000, and less again once the notice period is counted. That is not a rounding difference, it is more than double.

A target you can reach is a target people reach. One that never arrives is a reason to stop trying, which is the part the rule of thumb never accounts for.

Your notice period is already runway

One to three months is standard for salaried roles in India, and through it the income keeps arriving or is paid in lieu. That is real cover before the fund is ever touched. The three-to-six-month rule comes from American personal finance, where employment is largely at-will and there is no notice to count, so it was never adjusted for here.

On probation there is often no notice at all, which is exactly when a buffer matters most and precisely the case a rule of thumb cannot see. That is why it is an input.

What counts as essential

Rent, EMIs, food, bills, transport, insurance, anything with a due date. Not subscriptions you would cancel in week one, not eating out, not travel. The exercise is what the month costs when you are being careful, not what it costs now.

Why no return is projected on it

A buffer is held to be reachable, not to grow, and over the horizon that matters the difference a rate makes is small against the size of the balance. Projecting one would be a forecast, and nothing here forecasts returns.

Educational, not advice. Your numbers under assumptions you set.

Put this tool on your own site

Free, for any site. One line of HTML, no account, and nothing that tracks your readers.

Get the snippet

Next question

  • Can I afford it?

    A new commitment raises your essentials, and so raises this target.

  • Invest or repay?

    Once the buffer is there, what the next spare rupee is worth in each direction.