Too many expand their life at the same rate as their income flows in. Every payrise disappears.

Or in the American way, they expand beyond each pay raise and increase their debt load that much more. Then they wonder why come retirement they have nothing or why when a big expense comes along they can't find a way to pay for it, or worse why they end up loosing everything if one of them looses their job and can't find one.

The way we live if there wasn't a penny of income I can survive for 4 months currently. This was down to a low of 30 days right after paying for my boiler ($13k...ouch), but have rebuilt the cushion. I'd like to get it back up to 6 months but that will take some time as the holiday rush is over. This is purely liquid funds that are at zero market risk. This then allows me to not worry about investments daily movements. Much easier when you aren't playing with the money you need for bills.