Emergency Savings

Step 1 in creating a budget is knowing where the money should go. I thought where I would start is the savings section. I decided to start here as I am extremely blessed to be able to still live at home. My parents do not make me pay rent or buy groceries. However, my parents do have the expectation that I pay for my own education and that I stay out of debt while living under their roof. Which in my opinion is a fair deal. Now that I am in my fourth year and have enough money saved to pay for the rest of my tuition. I am trying to figure out how much I should be saving per month and where it should be going.

I have been doing some research on how to create a budget. Most articles agree that everyone should have emergency savings. Articles disagree on how much should be in your emergency savings account. All articles agree that it should be at least 3 months worth of expenses. A few articles said that it should be 6 months worth of expenses! 6 months worth of expenses is a little overwhelming for me to think about. Which is extremely scary considering I don't pay any room and board expenses yet.

My current expenses consist of a car payment, car insurance, cell phone bill, life insurance, and critical illness insurance. If I create a emergency savings account that is enough to cover just these expenses for 3 months I would need to save approximately $1,900. This amount may not seem like a lot of money to you but for a student only working part time it is overwhelming. It means that I will have to put approximately $160 away a month if I want to have this emergency fund set up in a year.

What are your opinions on an emergency fund? How may months worth of expenses should you save up? Should your emergency savings account take into consideration variable expenses such as clothing and entertainment?