Emergency floor sizer — a calculator
List what it takes to keep the lights on. Answer two honest questions about your income. See a range that fits your actual life, not an average one.
Nothing you type leaves the browser. No accounts, no sign-in, no saved history — a calculator that does not know who you are.
1. Your essential monthly cost
2. Your situation
3. A range that fits your life
A range, not a single number. A first milestone of $1,000 changes life more than the jump from $13,000 to $14,000 does — it is the difference between a car repair being a problem and being a crisis. Build the first month of essentials, then relax the pace.
Why this is true
The old shorthand — three to six months of expenses — is not wrong. It is just an average, and you are not an average. Your floor should size to two things the shorthand cannot see: how steady your income is, and how quickly you could replace it.
The math itself is trivial: essential monthly cost multiplied by a range of months. The useful work is picking a multiplier that fits an actual life. A stable salary in a two-earner household can lean toward the smaller end. Freelance income, commission, or a single earner argues for the larger end. The range this page returns is 3–6 months at the calm end, up to 7–10 months for a single earner with variable income — the same spread the reference piece uses.
Two things the dogma gets wrong. The floor does not need to arrive all at once — a first $1,000 changes life more than the jump from $13,000 to $14,000 does, because it is the difference between a car repair being a problem and being a crisis. And a floor that is too large has a cost too: money parked in checking earning nothing is money not doing anything else for you.
Plumb’s Cash view lets you set your floor explicitly, so safe-to-spend respects it automatically — the cushion stops being a resolution and becomes a line the math simply will not cross.
Plumb is financial education, not financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.