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DeVliegendeHollander comments on Stupid Questions June 2015 - Less Wrong
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I am by no means an expert, but here are a couple of options that come to mind. I came up with most of these by thinking "what kind of emergency are you reasonably likely to run into at some point, and what can you do to mitigate them?"
Learn some measure of first aid, or at least the Heimlich maneuver and CPR.
Keep a Seat belt cutter and window breaker in your glove compartment. And on the subject, there are a bunch of other things that you may want to keep in your car as well.
Have an emergency kit at home, and have a plan for dealing with natural disasters (fire, storms, etc). If you live with anyone, make sure that everyone is on the same page about this.
On the financial side, have an emergency fund. This might not impress your friends, but given how likely financial emergencies (e.g. unexpectedly losing a job) are relative to other emergencies, this is a good thing to plan for nonetheless. I think the standard advice is to have something on the order 3-6 months of income tucked away for a rainy day.
3-6 months? People don't go on piling up savings indefinitely? How else do you retire? I mean... there is state pension in the country I live in but I would not count it not going bust in 30 years so I always assumed I will have what I save and then maybe the state pays a bonus.
The 3-6 months is in a liquid savings account. Beyond that, you want your money in investments that will earn interest. They will be more volatile, so aren't advisable as an emergency fund. They can also be harder to access.
You are of course entirely correct in saying that this is far too little to retire on. However, it is possible to save without being able to liquidate said saving; for example by paying down debts. The Emergency Fund advice is that you should make a point to have enough liquid savings tucked away to tide you over in a financial emergency before you direct your discretionary income anywhere else.
Ah... I see. We keep most of our savings liquid. Safe i.e. government guaranteed investments at the biggest banks here are like 0.5% a year (the Kapitalsparbuch thing here in Austria), sot I don't give a damn. And I would rather not gamble on the stock exchange. If I would see inflation I would care, but then I would also see more decent interest rates.
I think its a minimum of 3-6 months in a place where you can access it on short notice. of course the most common advice I see around LW, and other "If I knew this when I was 20 years younger..." type posts is - its never too early to be saving money up and building wealth.