What is the Survival rung?

Survival is the first rung of the ladder: money you can reach today, for a shock that will not wait — a job loss, a medical bill, a repair. Its target is your essential monthly spending times a number of months. It starts at three months, and the slider on its card lets you choose anything from one to twelve.

On the card, the slider runs from 1 month to 12 months. Beside the value, suggested shows until you move it yourself, and the line beneath — At this setting the rung needs — gives the target that position implies, with an arrow and the change once you have moved it.

What counts as essential

Essential spending is everything in your plan’s spending except what is filed under Lifestyle & Entertainment and Travel. It is priced on the life you plan to live once you are independent (or once you have moved, if that comes later), at today’s prices — so a household moving countries keeps a buffer for the life it is building, not for rent that stops at the move.

What can fill it

• Only cash and deposits can fill Survival. Equities, bonds, gold, schemes and property cannot, because a shock does not wait for a market to recover or a deposit to mature.
• Any account you tick as Emergency fund under Investments always sits on Survival and never on a higher rung. It is also left out of your independence corpus, so the same money is not counted twice. See how to mark your emergency fund.
• If you mark more than Survival needs, the excess stays on Survival. Nothing re-files it; Action Items may point it out instead.

How much is enough

The card’s own guidance says three to six months of essential spending is the one settled number in personal finance, and then states your setting and what it costs. The chip beside it shows Survival’s share of the whole ladder, which is usually small.

When expensive debt competes with it

If you carry a loan other than a home loan costing 12% a year or more, and Survival is set above one month, the card suggests capping cash at one month and putting the difference against the debt. The rate is solved from your own balance, payment and remaining term where those are entered. Show the arithmetic opens the comparison, and Keep my own target dismisses the suggestion. It is advisory and never changes your setting.