What comes out of your savings account?

[oobiecoo]

DH are discussing this and we were wondering what most people do. Do you use your savings account for clothing, home projects, new tires, etc? Do you use it for vacations? Or is it strictly for really big purchases like a new car or house?

 

[pennquaker09]

The general answer is nothing. However, we have different savings accounts for different things. The general savings account is something we''ve committed to leave alone.

We have an emergency savings account in case something happens and we have to pay the bills. We have what I call the "Baby" account. Depending on the route we decide to go it will be the adoption or surrogacy account. I''m fairly sure, we''re not doing surrogacy again. We have a savings account with ING direct. We have a future car account. And a vacation account. And we have a house fund. It''s more for the future though. And then we have some other things, but those are the main ones I suppose.

The vast majority of everything comes out of our checking account. Whenever we buy clothes, a plane ticket, baby items, etc it comes from checking.

 

[steph72276]

Kind of the same as Penn....
We have a savings that isn''t touched for an emergency fund with several months living expenses and then we have one for big purchases like vacations, cars (we only pay cash), etc. Things like clothing, home improvement, car repairs, etc come out of our checking and are budgeted for every month.

 

[elrohwen]

We use savings for our wedding (currently) and will use it to save up a downpayment for a house (or at least get started saving the downpayment). We also use it for vacations. Of course it''s available as an emergency fund, but we don''t have separate savings accounts for separate things.

Smaller projects go on the credit cards and get paid off that month. If it''s too much to pay off in one month then we will pull out of savings to cover the extra.

 

[Dancing Fire]

what is saving account?

haven''t had one in 30 yrs.

 

[JSM]

I''ve been saving hardcore, and it''s SO nice to see the account grow! I don''t want to take money out of it, but we want to get married and at least have some semblance of niceties when we do. If I don''t pay for it, no one will, so it''s paying for our elopement (he is buying the car, so he''s not getting off easy, trust me!).

After that, what''s left will likely go towards moving expenses (rental truck, security deposit, etc). So I know the money is going to ''good causes'', but it sure it tough to see the savings account dwindle.

 

[Shoopy]

We use it strictly for big purchases and incidentals (like when we needed a new AC unit because ours died which also led to needing a new water heater since all the water from the AC dropped on top of the heater

)

 

[tlh]

We don''t touch ours. It is basically in case we were to lose a job or something dire were to happen so that we could pay our bills.

 

[geckodani]

We have one savings account, but I have it divided into categories in a spreadsheet.

The main bulk is for a future house down payment, but we also refer to it as the "oh crap!" fund. So, the $600 security deposit for our upcoming move, some of the medical expenses from my ER visit last weekend etc all come out of that. Basically any unexpected but necessary expense. I'd like to create a separate fund for the house, but at this point we're not able to sock away quite enough to do that.

I've also got a category for vacations, and it gets fed seperately from the main fund. If we have other projects we're saving for, I add a column to the spreadsheet and start feeding into that as well.

 

[Italiahaircolor]

We have various savings accounts each have different "goals" attached to them...however, for our general savings, we just don''t touch it for silly things, or anything really -- it''s an emergency fund, if something (God forbid) horrific happened, we''d have money that''s not tied up, we''d be able to access it immediately.

Mark and I have a very specific life style, every other week money is put into the account and we don''t even think about it. It''s not on our radar. It''s not there to be spent.

 

[musey]

Date: 2/9/2009 4:08:36 AM
Author: pennquaker09
The general answer is nothing. However, we have different savings accounts for different things. The general savings account is something we''ve committed to leave alone.

Ditto.

We have retirement savings (at 24, go us! haha) that is not to be touched (but that''s held in a separate location from our general savings), one for vacations, and a separate account each for large purchases (like computers, cars, etc.). We dip into the "large purchases" account if needed for unexpected expenses (like large car maintenance bills).

 

[Sabine]

We use ours for unexpected large expenses and for planned large purchases.

 

[Rhea]

We keep limited funds in our checking accounting, enough to cover the bills with a bit of padding so we aren''t constantly transferring money. Any other money is kept in our savings account and used as needed. A holiday might come out of it, a car would, major household furnishing do.

 

[Aloros]

We have one joint savings account for emergency purposes. We don''t touch that. We each have individual savings accounts for our splurges (him: a scooter, me: a netbook!). Right now we''re working on saving up our goal amount for emergencies.

Once we get that, we''ll probably look into opening one or two more accounts - for vacations and the kid''s college education.

 

[Efe]

We have a savings account that holds our 6 month emergency fund. I transfer a lump sum every month from checking to this account for home repairs, vacation savings, car replacement, etc. I keep track of the total in each fund on a spreadsheet. So, one account holds everything, but is accounted for separately. Sounds confusing but it really isn''t.

 

[Haven]

We don''t touch the money in our savings account. It''s our reserve, just in case we ever had to cover all of our expenses and didn''t have a source of income for a year or more.

 

[Fly Girl]

The savings account is only touched for big purchases: car, new roof, new furnace, vacation to Europe, etc. We were huge savers for years and now the savings is going down because we are paying for the kids'' college educations. It feels strange to be spending, but that is exactly why we were saving all these years, and I am delighted that they are getting their educations without incurring piles of student loan debt. My son graduated from college last year and thanked me for giving him the freedom to choose his future without worrying about student loans. It''s a huge gift from us to them, and I''m pleased that they realize it.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

We also have multiple money market accounts for different purposes: one is for home related expenses such as taxes, maintenance, etc., another is where we save for our next car (as we pay cash for cars) plus car maintenance expenses (new tires, etc.). One account has about 6 months living expenses for emergencies, and sometimes I use another account for vacation money. I understand the one account/spreadsheet philosophy, but this is SO much easier! I keep extra spending money in my checking for misc. stuff that comes up. Bills are all paid out of our main joint checking account. We''ve had savings accounts for our kids as well as funding ROTH IRA''s for ourselves. We are definitely more savers than spenders overall.

 

[ChargerGrrl]

We have multiple personal savings accounts, and then one joint savings account. All are with "E" banks so we just xfer what we need into our joint checking account.

We recently remodeled our bathrooms, and the funds came from our joint savings account.

 

[Miranda]

We have short term, long term savings in addition to an IRA and 401k.