Investment as equity capital, how much should be kept as reserves?

Or in other words - how much have you actually left on your checking account after the financing, for example, other investments, whatever?

Do you think 10,000 is too little? In case something happens with the car, washing machine, or just a small other buffer?

(This probably rather concerns people like me who finance quite tightly...)

Thanks!

I would always keep one year of installments available - and that in a speculation-proof manner

That cannot be answered universally, as it depends...

The recommendation of most banks and consumer advice centers is to keep 2-3 net monthly salaries as a reserve. In addition, there are further reserves for larger planned purchases such as a car, maintenance of the house, annually recurring payments like insurance, etc...

Furthermore, reserves should be continuously built up for other wishes such as larger vacations or purchases or planned investments.

If you do not want to cover these things from your current income, the only option is to set this aside from the beginning.

We have about 5-6 TEUR as ongoing, flexible reserves, alongside further earmarked reserves of about 30 TEUR which we access every 1-2 years.

It always depends on your lifestyle. We currently have about 6-8k in the account. Sometimes more, sometimes less. The rest goes towards living expenses and special repayments. However, we have also spent a lot on furniture and garden design this year.

As a self-employed person (with all risks), we maintain an absolute emergency reserve of about 100,000 EUR. This should cover approximately 1.5 to 2 years in case of emergency.

Anyone who cannot pay for small items like a washing machine (which today costs 300..400 EUR) from monthly income should better not build a house!

Regards, Steffen

8-10k low risk and quickly available. That's enough.

The rest is diversified across different risk classes and partly also available on short notice, if necessary.
I am not in favor of having x "safe" pots for any eventualities side by side. Washing machine and car repairs can be easily covered from the monthly liquidity, I don't need a panic fund for that. Yield killer.
Apart from that, I have good creditworthiness; getting 10-20k € somewhere within a few days on reasonable terms is easily possible. I can also pledge my securities without lifting a finger.

In the future, a large part will go into special repayments. These are a fixed part of our financial planning.

Steffen naturally has special needs as a self-employed person. 100k is already a lot, especially if, for example, there is an expensive car that could be turned into cash in an emergency. I would calculate everything in the overall context, otherwise you have too much dead capital lying around.