Husband quit his previous job & took the summer off to work on some personal projects / reset for awhile. For various reasons he wasn’t able to start job searching until the middle of November, just in time for Thanksgiving, and now the job market is shutting down for the December holidays. He’s starting to get super discouraged that he can’t find any positions (first time he’s really struggled to find something quickly). I’m trying to keep his spirits up but the longer it goes the more discouraged he gets. : / Not really a financial issue but it really goes to show how much the whole “your worth is your job” mindset our society has affects people.

We have about 100k in a taxable brokerage account, 99% VTSAX, plus more in retirement accounts that we don’t want to touch.

What’s a good way to structure a larger emergency fund?

My husband and I are buying an older home so we’d like to increase our immediately available liquidity from 8k to 30K in case we have any unexpected repairs. The current balance just sits in my checking account, but I’d like to shift it somewhere easily accessible and highly liquid, while also have it earning enough to at least keep up with inflation. Possible options I’m aware of:

• HYSA (not available at my current banker, boo, but I could open another account)
• Money market fund
• Money market account
• more VTSAX and chill (accepting the risk that we might have to sell in the future if something does come up).
• ???

Curious to hear people’s thoughts and philosophies on the topic. This is our first house and we’ve both always rented, so not something I’ve really considered in depth before.