<prompt> Human: Hello all. I currently have a many-month emergency fund that I am trying to invest in a way that I can a access the money fairly quickly and b maintain decent growth rate. My current strategy is to leave 20 as cash in a savings account for immediate access and put the remaining 80 in a Robinhood investment account. I figure that the settlement period the transfer time would be short enough that in the case of an emergency, I would still have access to the funds by the time the 20 ran out. But even still, I get the feeling there must be a better way of doing this. TLDR: how do I store an emergency fund so that I can keep it growing at least outpace inflation and maintain access to it when I need it?Assistant: Emergency funds are not for outpacing inflation, theyre for emergencies. 3-6 months expenses is all you need for your emergency fund.A high interest savings account like Ally at 1.15 will do some to preserve your buying power without risk. The rest of the loss to inflation you can think of as paying insurance that your money will be there when you need it.Stocks are a particularly bad idea because they tend to go down at the same time a lot of people are losing their jobs.Human: I agree that in bad times stocks are a spooky prospect, but I really cant stand the idea of my money slowly becoming less valuable in a savings account as inflation eats away at it. I think your comparison to paying for insurance makes it a bit easier to swallow.  <response>: For an emergency fund, risk mitigation trumps opportunity cost 