How many savings accounts do you have?

[April20]

I''ve turned into the crazy savings account lady this month. I''ve always had only one main savings account where I kept all of our slush fund and really consider it our "rainy day" money aka emergency fund. I''ve always found it to hard to save for more frivolous things in this account because I really hate to touch the money. That being said, I set up a "5 stone ring" account earlier this month. I really, really want one and if I don''t save for it, I''ll never get DH to buy it. (and as a side note, we''ve had some "found" money this month combined with some other money I was owed and I''m halfway there!!!

) Just tonight, I set up a "vacation" savings account. We''ve said all year we''ll put whatever refund we get towards our vacation and then each month, I''ll put half of our extra money into this account and the other half will go into regular savings.

There''s a piece of me that wonders if we''d earn more interest if all the money was in one account of if it''s really all the same, but I am terrible at that kind of math (we have ING accounts).

How many accounts does everyone else manage? Do you set up different accounts for different things or just manage one account and know how your money is allocated?

 

[jewelz617]

2. One is strictly for family/rainy day/extras.

The other is for my never ending asscher ring project.

My husband and I are extremely frugal. We don''t go on vacation, we don''t buy designer outfits and I cook almost every night. You rarely see us eating at a restaurant. We don''t have any credit cards and we pay for everything in cash when we can. This ring is for me, and to be an heirloom piece for my daughter someday. I''m paying for it entirely in full, not financing, because if you don''t have the cash to pay for luxury items in full, you shouldn''t be buying them (in most cases).

I keep my savings separate because this is my project and it''s important to me, but of course if we ever hit a rough patch it would have to go back into the family pot.

 

[RockHugger]

Only the one is my swiss bank account I keep in madagascar. I gotta keep my billions secret from my husband.

 

[April20]

Date: 1/29/2010 10:39:57 PM
Author: RockHugger
Only the one is my swiss bank account I keep in madagascar. I gotta keep my billions secret from my husband.

Shoot, all my savings are a secret from my husband, he doesn't know how to log into any of them!!!!! If something happens to me, he's screwed. He couldn't even remember the answers to his security questions earlier. And this would be why I need to make him a list of all of our info and where all our gold is hidden!!

 

[megumic]

Two.

1 - wedding
2 - house/cushion/emergency savings

 

[vc10um]

Checking
General Savings, including wedding
Honeymoon

 

[Kunzite]

Just one. We''re spreadsheet people so if we''re saving for multiple things at one time we''ll just keep track on a spreadsheet.

 

[yssie]

Date: 1/29/2010 11:33:54 PM
Author: Kunzite
Just one. We're spreadsheet people so if we're saving for multiple things at one time we'll just keep track on a spreadsheet.

One for each of us - I take care of the rainy day and long term wish list funds, he takes care of the needs-to-be-done-now and regular bills allotments.


We're big spreadsheet people too.

We have a gigantic spreadsheet on the wall of different grocery stores, what to buy where when, etc - it's turned into something quite monstrous.

 

[Burberrygirl]

Two that my parents set up for me. The first is for college expenses which is a joint account, my father and myself have control over. We don't talk about money in my family, I honestly have no idea how much is in either of them. Technically I have access to the first account, but I've never touched it. My dad takes care of everything!

 

[Lestat]

Well chalk me up as crazy, I''ve got 5 no-fee savings accounts with ING that pull money out of my main transaction acount automatically every week before I can spend it all

My main savings account to save for random things, like diamond rings

Health - An account budgeted for possible health expenses, dental, etc
Utilities - Phone, power, etc
Car - For licence and registration and a budgeted amount for repairs every year
Credit Card - to save so I can pay more than the minimum

Basically I just took my regular expenses, and best estimates for most other expenses, add a bit extra for security, and broke them down to weekly amounts, then when my weekly wage goes in, all of the small amounts are transferred to my seperate savings accounts automatically.

If I tried to do it by myself every week, there would never be any savings, I have no self control

 

[Bella_mezzo]

April-I just started a 5 stone ring savings acct too

We have one main savings acct, but I also just set up a few more--all are with ING

1. savings/cushion/emergency (our main savings acct)
2. tuition savings
3. 5 stone savings
4. we might start a vacation savings acct too--I''m on the fence

We also have a money market acct but its a sweep acct back into our investment acct.

I am a spreadsheet person, but now that DH and I are combining accts it actually works better to have separate accts for each major category (as long as they are free

 

[asscherisme]

I have a few accounts. I don''t like to keep my money in one place.

 

[MichelleCarmen]

I have two. . .one joint with my dh and one that''s just in my name. I use to have three in my name (plus the joint one), but it became so confusing. lol I had them because I had credit cards at each bank but then realized it was overkill so I closed two of them.

 

[elrohwen]

Just one - an ING direct account. We had planned to get a CD or something and put a bunch of house fund money in it, but when I lost my job we figured we'd just leave it in our regular savings account so we can access it if needed.

My other accounts are with Wachovia and they keep bugging me to open one of their new accounts. You can only put in up to $100 per month, but you get 5% interest for the first year. Seems tempting, but it's really not enough money to bother with I think.

eta: At the moment, there's nothing to allocate our funds for anyway. It's all going towards a house, but if my unemployment runs out and DH's salary isn't enough one month, it would become an emergency fund as well. So basically it just sits there while I hope not to need it

 

[partgypsy]

We just have our regular checking/savings, and savings at a nonbrick bank for emergencies. My dd has a small one for her allowance. If I was saving for something long term I would simply put it in the efund and mentally earmark the amount.

I do have a friend who wanted to save up for a ring, but any extra money she tried to save in the main account would end up getting spent on miscellaneous purchases, and her husband would make comments she could get a ring "when the house was completely paid off and the kid''s college completely funded" (while spending money on himself). I suggested she start a "jewelry account" where she could put a little extra every month and her birthday cash, and that''s what she did! It was a good thing for anyone who has arguments about who spent how much on what.

 

[Luckyeshe]

FI and I each have separate savings account and we have one joint one where we put all the wedding money into.

 

[Lauren8211]

I have a personal one, and then DH and I have an account for emergency/house money.

 

[Steel]

I couldn''t help but notice you all have bank accounts. I have a problem you could be helpings me with.

I have $500,000,000,000,000.99 in my home account but I cannot transfer it out because of marital/legal/etc problems. If you can send me your bank account numbers I will wire you the money and in return for this favour I will let you have 50% of the transfer amount. Or if you prefer you could write me a cheque for the whole amount and I would wire you the 50% when I have time.

Thank you for your help in this difficult time.

 

[Clio]

If you count each ING "subaccount" as an account, we have 7!

We have a joint account at our bank for general short-term savings. We also each have an individual savings account for frivolous spending $.

At ING, we have our emergency fund, an account for those expenses that always seem to pop up unexpectedly (like renewing the car registration - I always forget about that), an account for my husband''s business expenses, and a general long-term savings account.

 

[April20]

Date: 2/1/2010 9:41:16 AM
Author: Steel
I couldn''t help but notice you all have bank accounts. I have a problem you could be helpings me with.

I have $500,000,000,000,000.99 in my home account but I cannot transfer it out because of marital/legal/etc problems. If you can send me your bank account numbers I will wire you the money and in return for this favour I will let you have 50% of the transfer amount. Or if you prefer you could write me a cheque for the whole amount and I would wire you the 50% when I have time.

Thank you for your help in this difficult time.

If I was drinking coffee right now, I would have just spit it all over my monitor!

 

[dragonfly411]

Currently I have two checking accounts each with a savings account attached to it (so I can transfer money between the two easily). I WANT to be able to set up one that has some interest, but who knows when that will happen.

 

[purrfectpear]

For those who mention having Ing accounts, I''m curious why you stayed with them when the rates dropped so ridiculously low? I am a former Ing customer, but have since moved my money into a FDIC Hi-Yield Checking account that is paying 3.5%. My bank has subsequently closed to all but local (was open to anyone last year) customers, but there are several still out there above 3%.

 

[April20]

Date: 2/1/2010 11:12:59 AM
Author: purrfectpear
For those who mention having Ing accounts, I''m curious why you stayed with them when the rates dropped so ridiculously low? I am a former Ing customer, but have since moved my money into a FDIC Hi-Yield Checking account that is paying 3.5%. My bank has subsequently closed to all but local (was open to anyone last year) customers, but there are several still out there above 3%.

Honestly, pure laziness. It''s been easy to set up additional accounts when I''m already established. That being said, I''ve been starting to think about exploring other options. I know that some B & M banks have been offering teaser rates, but I haven''t had time to really look and see if it makes sense for us.

 

[rhbgirl24]

Just one.

But I set up the record keep in excel and money is ear-marked for different things in the same account. Lets say there is $1K for "jewelry fun money", the top would have that title and the amount, along with "Home deposit" and its amount... so on and so forth. So when money is added, I have to designate where it goes.

 

[lilyfoot]

Just one

 

[Bella_mezzo]

Still at ING b/c it''s easy and we have relatively small amounts of money in each acct we''re still combining accts since getting married, so we might look inot moving our emergency savings (the largest acct) to more of a high yield savings acct...