Originally Posted by
contango
You're the only person I've come across who suggests not buying anything until they've got 12 months salary in the bank. Most of the financial advice I've seen suggests more like 3-6 months pay as an emergency fund. Even then it makes more sense to buy a bike for £500 to get to work than it does to buy a car for £5000 to make the same journey.
I said 12 months in the US, 6 months in the EU because the EU has reasonable, albeit more expensive, unemployment insurance (in Germany it's 80% of salary for 12 months.)