There is another way to have an emergency fund as @hedehog said a while ago: Credit cards.
If you need more than 3k chf/m you can get two. Get the free ones so you can just leave them in the drawer and use only in case of an emergency.
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Good thinking. Why keep idle money when you can get interest-free loans. I let my credit cards work for me by withdrawing cash (only without cash advance fees), holding it in high-interest youth accounts and then repaying the credit by the due date. A fair bit of effort for the bit of money as I can only withdraw a couple hundred francs at a time for free. But kind of fun.
Yes, I agree that an emergency fund beyond one month does not make sense. Besides Taggeldversicherung and SUVA you also have RAV. So if you are out of a job, be it due to health reasons or politics at work or any other reason, your loss of salary is usually well compensated for. What I can suggest to anybody, rather than having a big emergency fund, is the lining up of a credit line or credit card. Most banks let you overdraw your giro Konto. Also, if you have a house, you may want to consider getting a second mortgage. Contrary to how things work in the US, you can´t get an equity line of credit that you can draw from, but it is a loan in the form of a second mortgage. This means that the bank will send you the money all at once, which means you will have to pay interest. However, given that the interest rate is lower than inflation, you are ok.
Hans
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I think the conservative part of portfolio (bonds or cash) is already an emergency fund.
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No you don’t. Average american is dirt poor in debt hole and living from paycheck to paycheck. Median net worth per individual is sub $50k and not rising. If you saved that much money you’re already better than half the people that rule of thumb was written for.
Never say never. This isn’t EU with crazy counterproductive worker protection laws. Switzerland is actually very close to US on this point - easy to hire and fire people on a short notice with little bureaucracy. Still if you’re high value intellectual worker, noone’s really going to fire you just like that on 2-4 week notice neither here nor in the US sans a major screw up on your part, because the cost of hiring and training your replacement is far greater.
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The problem is that things can happen together in life.
You split from your girlfriend and your company goes broke the same year.
You can get an accident that leave you with a disability. We have good insurance system in Switzerland but sometime the decision takes 12 month to come. During that time you need to provide cash, even if you get it back afterwards.
If you have a nice wealth accumulated and are lucky enough to enjoy two flow of money (salary and dividends) then the third tax bill (the one you pay in December) could be much greater than one month salary and there is no dividends in December.
Did anyone change his mind in the current situation? I bumped up my EF to 2 months of expenses, but still think that’s enough 
I don’t see the need for it but if I was self employed, maybe.
I used to get these people who want to be 100% invested into stocks to maximize their long-term return, so they keep 0 cash and finance their expenses through credit cards.
But now I think it’s reasonable to keep some CHF (10-20%), especially after a 10-year bull run. So when a crash happens, like it did, you have some reserve money to buy when it’s cheap. Cash is equivalent to purchasing power and I think it’s sensible to have some instant purchasing power at all times, and not have to sell some of your stocks when shit hits the fan (eg. you lose your job).
But that’s just me. Maybe it’s completely unreasonable. I just know that I could not be 100% invested, having this cash cushion helps me sleep better at night.
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I’m not sure if this is a good strategy. I don’t mean holding 10-20% in cash (not everybody should invest 100% in stocks, I will probably add bonds to when I’m 40+), that’s totally understandable. But keeping the cash as dry powder for future crashes to buy more stocks. This will reduce your expected long term return for sure. It’s a bad habit. If you don’t feel good about being 100% invested in stocks, you should never be invested 100% in stocks, not even if SP500 would crash to 1500 this year.
I’m maintaining 6-7 months expenses in emergency fund. It helped me sleep well at night while my near 100% equity portfolio was moving 5-10% everyday in March. So I’ll definitely keep the emergency fund going forward.
I had ~20% of portfolio in cash as I did not invest after Aug/Sept 2019, but then went in too soon in late Feb and early March. So some learnings for future.
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Love it! 
Your definition of a really, really bad day?
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After you fire yourself. If you get fired you can straight get the unenployment insurance, even if you get in a car accident the same day. 
(touch wood)
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You will receive a UB amounting to 80% of the insured salary if…
- You have child maintenance obligations;
- Your insured salary does not exceed CHF 3,797;
- You are drawing a disability allowance which corresponds to a degree of disability of at least 40%.
In all other cases you will receive a UB amounting to 70% of the insured salary.
https://www.arbeit.swiss/secoalv/en/home/menue/institutionen-medien/faq.html
There were children in the car, so 80%.
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There is also a delay. Depending on how much you were earning, you’ll have to wait up until one month (Geneva, Vaud, at least) before you start getting the allowances.
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If you get fired, you will get 3 months of salary before that.
Personally, I keep around 1000 chf in my bank account. I mean it is the target for the day before the next salary comes in.
It is also dependent on the notice period and your saving rate. If I get fired, I will still be able to live of my salary for twice the notice period without any unemployment insurance.
But unemployment will cover more than my expenses.
Even if I have to dab into my stocks at a low point, over the long run I will more than make up for it.
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This. I have notice period of 3 months. So even if I decide to quit the job, I’ll have 3 months of salary and time to send in some job applications in the meantime. If I can’t find anything, I’ll get 70% of my previous salary from RAV (as long as I have evidence that I applied for 30 jobs in those 3 months) for a maximum period of 2 years. Again, more than enough time to find a new job and more than enough money to cover all expenses.
Yes, you still get the money even if you quit voluntarily. But that means termination is 100% your fault and you will get penalized to the maximum for it - 60 days without unemployment benefits. While you still will have to continue searching and applying for jobs during these 60 days, else you get even more of them.
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