How do I mark my emergency fund, and what does it change?
Tick Emergency fund on the account that holds it. That money leaves your independence corpus and fills the Freedom Ladder’s Survival rung instead, so it is never counted twice.
Mark it on the account it sits in. Under Investments → Cash savings & bank deposits, break your cash down by account if you have not already (Break this down by account), then tick Emergency fund in the What it is for column on that row.
What changes
- The balance leaves the figure Counted toward your independence corpus. Money for a broken boiler is not money for forty years of groceries.
- It is placed on the Freedom Ladder’s Survival rung, the shock fund, where it is doing the job you set it aside for.
- The summary at the top of Investments shows it separately, as Set aside for emergencies, beside Everything you hold and Funds your independence.
- Under the cash table: the marked amount, and a reminder that it funds your Survival rung and is deliberately not counted toward your corpus.
The four rungs
| Rung | Protects against | Held as |
|---|---|---|
| Survival | A shock that will not wait | Cash you can reach the same day |
| Sustenance | Income stopping | A laddered runway, no growth assets |
| Sufficiency | The number itself | One equity-to-debt decision |
| Surplus | What comes after | Whatever you choose it to be |
Each rung has its own purpose, its own target formula and its own instrument mix. They are not four versions of one allocation model.
The four rungs of the Freedom Ladder: what each protects against, and how it is held.
- Survival — protects against a shock that will not wait; held as cash you can reach the same day.
- Sustenance, Sufficiency and Surplus sit above it.
Illustrative figures — not anybody’s real plan.
If you do not mark anything
Nothing moves. Only an explicit tick changes the corpus; Nivritee never treats an unanswered row as an emergency fund. Where a reading needs a figure for emergency cover — the resilience part of the financial freedom index — it falls back to your cash and deposit balances, and failing that, to a deliberately small share of your corpus.
How much to mark
Mark the money you have actually set aside, not what you think you should have. The Survival rung on the Freedom Ladder says how much it needs from your own essential spending. If you mark more than it needs, Action Items says so — You have set aside more for emergencies than Survival needs — and quotes the extra that is sitting outside your corpus. It is reported, never moved for you.
See this in your own plan.
Open InvestmentsLast reviewed 1 October 2026.