If you own an apartment that you rent, you should definitely have a sufficient emergency fund, because if you qre unlucjy you might not be able to rent out your apartment for a long time. Or even worse “Mietnomaden” that destroy your property and you can’t get them out of there as protection of renters is absurdly high in Switzerland.
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In that scenario you pray the idiot who hit you is rich and get them to FIRE you 
Then you sing “come on baby light my FIRE” all the way to the bank.
Are a lombard loan or credit card limit part of an emergency fund?
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They can be part of an emergency plan and should work most of the time. The times they may not have chances to be correlated with times of financial hardship for us, though (stocks down heavily cutting through lombard loans availability or creditors tightening the ship and lowering our credit limit on credit cards).
I rely on a lombard loan but it is not for everyone
Personally I have good insurance against incapacity to work from my employer and unemployment insurance and I would consider keeping 12 months expenses in cash as too expensive. Over 10 years I most likely “lose” 1 years’ expenses in opportunity cost (7% p.a. doubles in 10 years) and over a 40 year working life the bill is 13 years’ living expenses
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I recently had a large unexpected expense. The tax office decided to send me the bill for the difference between tax at source and their calculation for tax owed for two years at once (2021 and 2022). I’m a frontalier so don’t do individual tax returns any more.
Back when we did tax returns I used to be quite diligent about putting plenty of money aside for taxes based on previous years’ bills. However, when we became frontaliers with very simple tax affairs and very limited possibilities for deductions I assumed that the tax at source would be a good match for tax owed. I also assumed that the bills would be sent out annually.
Turns out both of these assumptions were wrong. I received two bills at the same time for both the years. This translates two approximately the total income for one month. Luckily I had enough in the emergency fund to cover it. To me it’s a reminder not to go to a zero emergency fund.
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Two tax bills amounting only to one month income?? Lucky you, for me that would be at least 3 months income.
I still have an emergency fund of zero, as I’m able to cover large unexpected expenses with a margin loan. I agree it’s not for everyone, but for me personally I prefer to let my money work and as I’m able to quickly pay back the margin loans the costs for this method are low for me.
No, it’s in addition to what was already withheld at source.
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Hello
Some ideas to put this EF at work without risks ?
I have approx 30 kCHF for EF, and I’d love to keep it liquid, and not having to pay to use it.
I’ve already thought about Raifessen membership which let you acquire up to 5000 CHF in social shares and maybe could save me some more fees for the bank account itself (UBS). If I remember well, 3%interests on this amount and the benefit of a better rate on the saving account
Any suggestion is welcome
Personally, I wouldn’t invest more than necessary to obtain a share in Raiffeisen. Note that there is a three-month notice period before you can recover your money invested in the shares. However, with a share, you gain access to a savings account, which offers a higher interest rate than a standard saving account. This can be a good solution to stay liquid while enjoying a better interest rate.
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One of the savings accounts from the other threads on this forum (WIR, wiLLBe, etc).
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Personally seeing how the job market is, and how many people being made redundant around me, I decided to substantially build my emergency fund to protect my sanity first and my investments second.
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Raiffeisen social shares are equity, not cash. They are the circuit-breaker that is there to burst off in case of liquidity/solvency issue in the bank.
I’d stay with savings accounts, if necessary two of them to allow for quick withdrawal of 30k. I would consider buying a Raiffeisen social share if that allows me to benefit from better rates than I would find in another bank (though chances are you can find similar or better offers elsewhere: they’re usually good but not top of the pack).
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You can get a free dinner once a year at the general assemblies. Could be interesting for some people that are involved in the village life or want to get to know some poeple. I used to go once in while and it was not so bad.
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I have the same, worrying feeling, but then I checked the Unemployment rate and apparently it decreased recently (source: swissinfo.ch).
Does someone know relevant statistics, like:
- like the number of people looking for a job, which in my opinion is more indicative of how tight is the job market now
- the open job positions for a given sector and the evolution over time
If it’s the SECO unemployment value you’re looking at (about 100’000 people or 2.5%), then this is actually by definition the number of people registered at RAV and therefore actually (at least theoretically) the number of people looking for a job.
For example Die Lage auf dem Arbeitsmarkt im Februar 2024
In which sector(s)? In IT it don’t see much of that…
Pharma & consulting. I feel unemployment figures are hard to read, and after a certain salary level are irrelevant.
Right, I heard about the 700 employee layoff at Novartis around April/May…
Novartis have been laying people off for 4 years, worldwide. So are many other pharmas, largely because of patent cliffs, the age of the megablockbuster coming to a close, increasingly harder market environment for drugs.
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