When doing financial planning you should always try to save up to 6 months of all expenses. This is hard to achieve but the recommended number even if you are staying at your industry job. You never know what can happen.
For example, in the totality of your personal situation, you might have:
+ multiple independent sources of income + insurance against common forms of risk (e.g. very good health or occupational coverage) + strong non-market safety nets, either via your government or social network + better than average marketability of your skills + a lifestyle which was amenable to belt-tightening in the event of an emergency + access to credit which would survive events likely to cause a hit to your income
I appreciate that there is a wide range of the risk tolerance spectrum represented on HN, and I'm probably towards the "I'd prefer more consistent, smaller returns" side of it, but there are many people for whom six months of savings is underbuying risk given their positioning and preferences.
My family makes a good income, own a modest home, drive 10 year old cars, have $0 debt ex-mortgage and don't do exotic trips. We put 20% away for retirement.
Our baseline cost to live including mortgage, property tax, food & minimal extras is probably around $45k. Our area has a tight rental market, so owning the house is a net money saver.
Other than cannibalizing retirement, building up that much is tough.
No car, no family to support, no travel, no expensive purchases (I remember deliberating for weeks about buying an iPod Nano). Doubt I could have done it with a family to support and multiple cars.
I did have immediately family as a safety net but I covered my own expenses for whatever I needed after moving out, with the exception of a few meals here and there.
Not having any dependents helps...a lot.
If you make that decision, it also makes it easier because it reduces the amount of money you would need for six months expenses. If you're low on cash, you're less likely to put money into retirement savings anyway (since if it takes too long to get more revenue, you'd have to pay fees to make use of that same retirement money.)
Currently I put 1/6 of my pre-tax income away for retirement, then put 1/5 of the remaining into savings, and another 1/5 into my emergency/charity account. I donate 1/4 of that account to charity at the end of the year, and I also dipped into it when my apartment caught fire.
I'm probably not going to be able to keep all of this up when I have kids, but I'll be doing it until then.
I don't own but rent - economically in the long run buying would be more advantageous but being able to move in a heartbeat or quit my job to start my own business took priority over that. I am religious about saving cash. Every month before my paycheck (used) to drop in my account I would put a decent percentage into savings - this was after 401k contributions (which I did about ~10%). If i received a bonus at work 90% would go directly to savings either in the form of my personal investment account or cash reserves (with 10% always going to 401k). The remaining 10% was for the family slush fund.
From a financial planning perspective 10% might be low for 401k but I believe I can make my money work harder outside of it. My household cost is similar to yours (~45k), I add 10k to keep sanity (vacations with wife, anniversary presents, etc).
Disclaimer: This is working for a established tech firm paying towards the high end of industry average and working there for 5 years. If you are in a startup your salary is lower and lopsided towards equity so achieving this cushion I imagine is a lot harder.