start a six-month emergency savings fund

I need to do a budget and track spending to be sure of my goal, but informally it’s 10K. I am padding a bit, I think, but my car could die at any time, and I’m thinking I might use this for a house down payment, which means I’ll need to build up another emergency fund right away.

Well, my earlier goal was a 3 month emergency savings fund. Now I want to have 6 months. Would be nice and with the economy tanking, not a bad idea to have a longer term plan. I am the least senior person in my department, after all. Ok, I am really not worried about getting laid off, but it is within the realm of possibility.

Now I need to set a budget to determine what I really need for 6 months worth of expenses and how quickly I can get there. Saving is actually fun now that I have thousands of dollars to play with, not tens : )