Why you need an emergency fund and how to work out how big it should be

Sep 28, 2026 – 5.00am

Record household wealth has not saved Australian families from a cash-flow crunch: 27 per cent say they could not raise $4000 in an emergency within a week, according to the latest University of Melbourne’s Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey.

The survey attributes this sharp spike in financial stress to higher living costs combined with flatlining real disposable incomes.