How big buffer account do you need?

How big your backup account should be is of course very individual and I hear different suggestions.

At the moment our buffer account contains one month of expenses. This sound very little to a lot of people, but the reason is that we live in a rental and we no longer have a car. Because we can survive on just one income it seems unlikely that we both will lose our income at the same  time. The emergency money is just sitting in the bank losing value. It is money that's not working for us. That is why we want to keep it small. Perhaps one month of expenses might even be too much for us? Once we start living our free lives our buffer will be a lot bigger, because we no longer have any work income. At that point we might have a year worth of expenses in our backup account, but at the moment one month feels enough, even though it is hard to not increse is it a little by little.

Saved expenses

We have opened a new savings account to which we transfer all the money we save during the month by for example biking to work instead of car, buy second-hand instead of brand new, recycle empty beer cans we find on our walks, cut my own hair, when we decide to not buy something or do something we're thinking of.

It's going to be fun to see how much we save every month. At the end of every month we will buy stocks for savings. We have another savings account so this will just be some extra money we would not have had if we did things differently during the month.

For example. Every day I take the bike to work instead of the car I will transfer 30 SEK/3 Euro to the savings accounts. That's what I count the cost to be for car commute every day, just including gas. I will not count for value loss since we bought the car last summer for 30k SEK/3k Euro and plan to keep it until it falls apart.

Every time my wife cuts my hair I transfer 300 SEK/30 Euro to the savings account, and so on.

Not buy anymore clothes until we move

I have been a minimalist the last 6 years or so. When I go through my wardrobe I notice I have a lot more clothes than I use and need. I may have less than "normal" people, but for me I have way too much. The reason is that I sometimes felt I wanted to look more mature and professional. I told myself that if I want to become successful, I have to look successful. But if I want to become rich, I can't spend a lot of unnecessary money on luxuries like clothes I don't really need. I came to the realisation that when I live in the Philippines, my daily outfit will be comfortable shorts, T-shirt and flip flops. Just like I wear now in Sweden this hot and wonderful summer.

So everything we buy for the next few years that we will not be bringing with us to Philippines or can sell before we move, is a waste of money.

I will therefor try to not buy any more clothes than the absolutely necessary, such as change out used and broken shoes and underwear. If I really need to buy clothes I will for the first time in my life buy it second-hand or buy it when we are visiting the Philippines. This should put the annual clothing account to nearly zero.