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How Long Will Your Money Last?
If the income stopped tomorrow, how many months would your savings actually cover? Most people have never run the number. Here it is.
YOUR RUNWAY
You have real runway.
10 months
With no income, $30,000 of savings covers $3,000 a month of spending for about 10 months. That clears the six-month mark most planners treat as a solid cushion.
With savings of $30,000 and monthly spending of $3,000 and no income, your money lasts about 10 months. A common emergency-fund target is three to six months of spending.
Three months is a basic cushion. Six months is solid.
| Savings | $30,000 |
|---|---|
| Monthly spending | $3,000 |
| Monthly income kept | $0 |
| Net monthly burn | $3,000 |
| Runway | about 10 months |
Runway assumes spending stays level. A real income shock is the moment to cut spending, which stretches this number.
Educational planning math. Not financial advice.
How long will your money last?
The core of it is simple: divide your savings by what you spend each month. $30,000 of savings against $3,000 a month of spending is about ten months of runway with no income. Any income you keep reduces the monthly burn and stretches the runway. Any return your savings earn while you draw them down stretches it further. The number that matters is not how much you have saved, it is how many months of your life that money buys.
How much should you have in an emergency fund?
The standard guideline is three to six months of essential spending. Three months is a basic cushion. Six months is solid. More is wise if your income is variable, if you are the only earner in a household, or if your field is slow to rehire. The point of the fund is not the balance, it is the calm of knowing an income gap does not become a crisis.
Why runway beats a savings goal
A flat savings target ignores how you live. $100,000 lasts twenty-five months at $4,000 a month and over four years at $2,000 a month. Runway ties the pile to the burn, which is the honest measure. Startups have always tracked cash this way. Households rarely do, and most people discover their real runway only after the income has already stopped.
Frequently asked questions
How long will my money last?
Divide your savings by your monthly spending. $30,000 of savings and $3,000 a month of spending lasts about 10 months with no income. Any income you keep, or any return on the savings, extends it.
How long will my savings last if I lose my job?
With no income, your savings last for roughly your savings divided by your monthly spending. This is your runway. It is the single most useful number to know before an income shock, not after one.
How much should I have in an emergency fund?
The common guideline is three to six months of essential spending. Three months is a basic cushion, six months is solid, and more is wise if your income is variable or a single earner supports a household.
How long will $100,000 last?
It depends entirely on your spending. At $4,000 a month with no income it lasts about 25 months. At $2,000 a month it lasts over four years. Spending, not the size of the pile, sets the runway.
Does this account for inflation or investment returns?
You can add an expected annual return, which extends the runway as the balance keeps earning while you draw it down. The default is zero for a plain, conservative view. Inflation is not modelled separately, so use current spending.
What is a savings runway?
Runway is how long your money covers your life if income stops or drops. Startups measure it in months of cash. Households can measure it the same way, and most people have never actually calculated theirs.
How this is calculated
Net monthly burn is your monthly spending minus any income you keep. With no return, your runway is simply savings divided by that burn. If you add an expected annual return, we draw down the balance month by month while it earns one twelfth of the annual rate, until it reaches zero, which lengthens the runway.
Runway assumes your spending stays level and does not model inflation separately, so enter current spending. If your income already covers or exceeds your spending, your savings are not being drawn down and the runway is open-ended. Figures compiled by Tesseract Research. Not financial advice.
Runway buys time. What you do with the rest decides the outcome.
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