What’s a good way to structure a larger emergency fund?
My husband and I are buying an older home so we’d like to increase our immediately available liquidity from 8k to 30K in case we have any unexpected repairs. The current balance just sits in my checking account, but I’d like to shift it somewhere easily accessible and highly liquid, while also have it earning enough to at least keep up with inflation. Possible options I’m aware of:
- HYSA (not available at my current banker, boo, but I could open another account)
- Money market fund
- Money market account
- more VTSAX and chill (accepting the risk that we might have to sell in the future if something does come up).
- ???
Curious to hear people’s thoughts and philosophies on the topic. This is our first house and we’ve both always rented, so not something I’ve really considered in depth before.
I have mine structured like this:
- ~50% - ibonds - they’ve matured past the 1-year lockout period, so they’re very liquid
- ~25% - t-bill ladder at brokerage (13-week t-bills purchased every 2 weeks)
- ~25% - money market fund at brokerage
My brokerage is also my main bank account, so it’s really quick to transfer money to my “checking.” In fact, I hold my t-bills in my “savings.”
I’m probably going to sell my ibonds and either repurchase at the higher fixed rate or add to my t-bill ladder. If I did it today, I’d probably just go with t-bills.