SKILL.md
Emergency Fund Skill
"Six months of expenses" is a slogan wearing a decimal — the real number depends on which expenses (essential, not total) and which risks (one income or two, steady or variable, how fast the job replaces itself). This skill computes the target from those inputs, builds the funding timeline, and writes the two rule-sets that make a fund work in practice: what counts as an emergency, and when to stop adding to the fund and start investing the surplus.
What This Skill Produces
- The risk-adjusted target — base 3 months of essentials, plus priced risk adders, from the script
- The essential-spend worksheet — the emergency budget, which is smaller than the current budget on purpose
- The funding plan — gap, monthly rate, completion date, and what pauses (not stops) contributions
- The two rule-sets — is-this-an-emergency, and the fund-is-full-now-what line
Required Inputs
Ask for these if not provided:
- Essential monthly spend — housing, food, utilities, insurance, minimum debt payments, transport; NOT the current all-in lifestyle number (help build this if they only know the total)
- The risk profile — single or dual income, income variability (freelance/commission/seasonal), dependents, how specialized the job market is
- Current liquid savings and monthly saving capacity — for the gap and timeline
- What they're funding instead — high-interest debt or an unmatched 401k competing for the same dollars changes the sequencing conversation
Programmatic Helper
python3 scripts/emergency_fund.py --essentials 3400 --saved 4000 --monthly-save 500
python3 scripts/emergency_fund.py --essentials 3400 --saved 4000 --monthly-save 500 --single-income --variable-income --json
Deterministic: base 3 months + 1 (single income) + 2 (variable income) + 1 (dependents) + 1 (niche job market), capped by honesty — the flags are the risk conversation made explicit.
Framework: The Sizing Rules
- Essentials, not lifestyle — the emergency budget already cancelled the subscriptions; sizing on total spend overshoots the target by months and delays being protected at all
