Here’s something that I happened to read the other day —

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. Mark Twain.

Leads to some interesting thoughts — How many months [worth of monthly expenses] is too many months in your emergency fund? Should you really be prepared for every possible emergency that life can throw at you? Should you (or your financial investments) really be prepared for every possible financial risk?

In my line of work, we look at a risk in terms of its likelihood (probability of occurrence) and impact (magnitude of loss on occurrence). Perhaps this could be a good framework for planning ones personal finances as well. Look at the illustration below.



For example, the likelihood of a job loss is high and its impact when you don’t have a financial buffer (emergency funds, alternate sources of income, etc.) is high. Then you really do need to worry about this scenario and work towards mitigating it. But the chart shouldn’t just be seen as snapshot at a point in time. So as you work hard towards building that financial buffer the impact starts decreasing and at a point there’s no need to worry about it any more (having a fatter emergency fund after this point doesn’t really change anything).

A good strategy would be to evaluate your risks periodically (once every quarter) against this framework — your goal should be to move everything to an “Ignore.”

What do you think?