Lol. Data protection and you tell us so much info about you 
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It wasnât really plan, I consider it more like an opportunity. I could refused the job and go to the employment insurance (I would earn more). I decided to take it, and Iâm happy to have some cash sitting in my bank account to help me sleep at night and enjoy my life during these âharshâ months incoming.
Hahaha ^^
Data protection doesnât mean to hide everything 
Quite the opposite in fact!
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The real question is how much of it is true 
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When I was an IT contractor back in the day the âstandardâ was 4-6 months living expenses. This would cover you in case your project was cancelled or you needed some time between projects. I think today the âstandardâ is closer to 2-3 months and have the money invested in highly liquid options to plan for the worse
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With 100-200k or more at IBKR I see no point in having a cash EF at all. Opportunity costs are much higher than the margin interest rate.
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What do you do if your internet access is not working right when you need it ?
Example : you are abroad, phone is dead, had an accident, need to pay a certain amount in cash that the surgeon will see you.
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Iâd use a credit card and withdraw cash with it from an ATM.
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Get surgeon or wife to call health insurer
If going somewhere with less developed healthcare or financial systems consider getting travel insurance with repatriation. I had to use it once, TCS sorted me out including getting money to the taxi driver !
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Debit cards from banks are working on most ATMs abroad.
Emergency surgery will still be done in the respective country. But I am really talking about advancing cash otherwise they wonât lift a finger.
Anyway, my point is that your phone for 2 factor authentification might not be available at the time you need the cash, that is why I would not rely on it solely for emergency funding via IBKR margin. A good 10k might come handy at some point.
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Well, you are right. It can happen, and thatâs why I never rely on virtual/smartphone only payment methods and always have few physical cards with me (yes, they donât need an authorization on smartphone or something).
But it has nothing to do with a question of keeping emergency cash or not. Right now, just being at my regular work, I have in my pocket over 8k CHF credit available as card limits. If I go to vacation, especially abroad, I take few more credit cards and have in my pocket an available credit in the range of 20-30k, on top of Revolut balance reserved for normal expenses. So if I suddenly need 5k EUR cash in case of emergency, I withdraw it, no matter how terrible fees are. You can swallow these fees (or maybe even get it reimbursed by the insurance?), thatâs not what counts in case of emergency. You can sort out this situation later, once the emergency had passed, typically you have one month or so to pay a credit card bill.
But these are emergency situations. You should have a plan and know how to react if it happens, but putting aside extra cash just because you might be abroad AND you/your beloved people might have a medical emergency OR an accident AND you/they are being delivered to a medical facility that doesnât do anything without a cash advance, is not rational. Remember that AND means multiplication of probabilities, which are already very small for every individual condition.
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In this case you probably shouldnât rely too much on the future cash flow from this salary.
- Resign after you found a new job.
- Go to Bosnia/Poland/etc. to fix your teeth.
- Use public transport till you saved enough to buy a car.
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I am aiming for having cash aside to cover roughly one year of costs which will be not invested. Despite this is not a mustachian way to go and maybe an irrational thing (no dividends, inflation, no increase in value) this is something I can absolutely live with it. I want to keep it as cash and not investing in MINT or gold or whatever. For me, it is part of diversification.
I do not want do be dependend of the credit card company or my broker at a low point in my life - because this is the case when we are talking about emergencies.
But yes, we have very solid social insurances which should cover you. But as said: I want to be independend as good as possible.
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If we are talking about the member of this forum who most of them are working in the IT field with a lot of skill and already a nice experience and position in the work hierarchy, yes they will probably find another job in a matter of days or months.
Nevertheless, it will also depend on other factors (age, wage, personnality, etc.). No one is safe from having to spend several months or years finding a new job. Or to change their field of activity because they get rid of the previous one.
I second that of course.
But if you need to fix that, you will need time to do it!
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These days I mostly travel in Western Europe where Swiss insurance is accepted or credit card or if not I would always call on a relative or friend to wire money.
The opportunity cost of permanently keeping 10,000 cash balance for this eventuality is 140k over 40 years, thatâs too high for me. If I was going to a country I was concerned about I would make a plan eg travel insurance
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so I agree in general that for most cases, margin is ok. but the title of the thread was CASH, which could mean not even in a bank so letâs go a bit in the paranoid case: no internet, maybe some natural disaster, war, zombie apocalypse
I personally only have water reserve in my cave because I grew up in a village where a couple of time per year water was undrinkable because of floods, so I sleep better knowing that there is a reserve (36 liter) in my cave, which is inline with federal reccomendation and arguably not even âparanoidâ, just being a good citizen.
Anybody has an emergency fund as cash/gold/silver at home ? and just relies on margin for everything else? I can understand if you prefer not say (eg robber risk etc)
Do you have not an emergency âfundâ but an âemergency bagâ? With some cash, maybe gold/silver, weapons (???), some basic first-aid kit, water?? etc.
Looking at Ukraine refugees coming in, it seems that people had time to pack the essential and you would not have to have a pre-prepared bag. Aside from a flood (like in Germany last year) Iâm not sure there are other event in Switzerland for which you are required to have something you can simply grab with some essential: blanket, cash, torchlamp, bottle of water, passports etc.
OT
what kind of container are you using ? 1.5-2 l bottles or something bigger ?
Iâd like to do the same for a family of 4 but Iâd rather avoid storing 100 bottles of PET (we usually drink tap water as well) which Iâd have to drink/replace on a regular basisâŠ
I personally do not have cash or gold at home. But it totally makes sense, to have something ready to flee (if you have to, see your example with the Ukrainians).
I think, having electronic (and physical) copies of the most relevant documents may not be bad. So I have just to take my passport and my SG550 
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To escape the city in case of zombies I think cigarettes and whiskey are the most important bargaining goods. And a few bars of gold.
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