Why you might need to save £50,000 to be comfortable - are YOU saving enough for your age?

Savers over 60 could need as much as £50,000 stowed away in cash to have a big enough savings buffer to fall back on, research suggests.

As a rule of thumb, experts recommend keeping three to six months worth of essential spending in cash savings to cover you.

But for those in their sixties and above, this grows to between one and three years' worth of savings to cover essential costs.

This is because savers who reach the age of retirement and stop working are usually on a lower fixed income.

Sarah Coles, director of personal finance at stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown explains: 'This change kicks in whenever you stop working, when you need savings to cover one to three years' worth of expenses.'

'When you're on a lower fixed income, if you're hit with costs out of the blue, you'll need to dip into your savings, and it takes longer to rebuild them.

'Having enough savings to cover longer period allows for more than one nasty surprise before you've had time to recover.'

While you are of working age, you need cash to cover three to six months' worth of emergency spending for the household.

Households spend an average of £2,062 on essentials each month, a report from stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown found.

This means the average amount a household will need to have saved is between £6,186 and £12,327.

But this amount varies based on how much your monthly essential costs are. The recommended amount of emergency savings for a household varies between just under £5,000 and just over £50,000, depending on your age and circumstances.

Those aged 60 and over have the lowest costs of £1,392 a month. If you are aged 60 or above, you need to have between £16,704 and £50,112 saved to have the recommended one to three years worth of savings to cover essential costs.

If you are in your 50s, the average monthly costs for households is £1,758.

Therefore you need to have between £5,274 and £10,548 saved to meet the three to six month emergency buffer recommendation.

Those in their 40s have the highest average monthly costs of £2,353, according to Hargreaves Lansdown.

'It's an expensive time of life, because often people will have children living at home in their 40s, so their outgoings will be higher. In many cases they will also be paying the mortgage on a family home,' says Coles

This means this age group would need to have between £7,059 and £14,118 saved to have a sufficient emergency buffer.

If you are in your 30s your average monthly costs are estimated at £2,264. To have the recommended level of savings you would need to have between £6,792 and £13,584 saved in an emergency pot.

Those in their 20s have average monthly costs of £1,606 and so would need to have between £4,818 and £9,636 saved to meet the recommended three to six month emergency buffer.

Almost two thirds of people have built a decent emergency savings safety net to support them if life takes a turn for the unexpected, according to Hargreaves Lansdown.

But younger savers are more likely fall short. It hits a low between the ages of 20 and 24, when only 31 per cent hold enough cash.

Those who have health issues are also more likely to fall short on emergency savings as they have higher costs. Three quarters of those in poor health do not have enough saved, as do more than half of renters and half of single people living on their own.

Research by Lifetime Isa provider OneFamily found nearly three in ten single young adults do not have an emergency fund, compared with one in six in a relationship.

Single savers said they manage to put aside an average of £301 per month - around half the £609 those in relationships are saving.

Meanwhile, the highest 20 per cent of earners of working age have enough cash to cover 12 months' worth of essential spending, couples living on their own have an average of 10 months' worth, and those who own their own home outright have enough to cover 19 months' worth of essential costs.

The best place for your emergency fund is an easy-access savings account or cash Isa.

At the moment, you can get interest of 4.6 per cent on a cash Isa or 4.89 per cent on a savings account so they are more than keeping pace with inflation.

Look for an account that does not have sneaky restrictions on how often you can withdraw your money before the rate drops.