Before the first euro goes into anything that can drop, put three to six months of spending somewhere it cannot: a deposit or a savings account in your name that you can reach within a day. It will not earn much. That is not its job.
Its job is to make sure a broken car, a month between jobs or a medical bill is an inconvenience and not a fast loan at fifty percent. Every plan I have seen fail did not fail on the investments. It failed on the first surprise, when the money was locked up or the market happened to be down that week.
Once the cushion is there, everything else gets easier. You can take a job that pays later. You can sit through a bad year without selling. You can say no.
Two people, twenty and forty years on
Both get the same surprise every four years: a bill the size of one month's spending. Ivo pays it from the cushion and tops the cushion up. Ana borrows it fast, and by the time it is repaid it has cost forty percent more.
In Bulgaria, as of September 2026
Deposits in Bulgarian banks are guaranteed up to 100 000 € per person per bank. The interest on them is taxed at 8%, one more reason not to expect the cushion to earn anything. It is insurance, not an investment.