how many different accounts do you have?

[shibabigk]

I of course know that a lot of you have the emergency fund, but how do you handle your other savings, say for a vacation, a new car, etc? Do you have seperate emergency accounts for seperate emergencies? Say one for medical, car, house and so on.
I'm trying to get some ideas on howI want to handle things.
Thanks!

[irmanator]

Coincidently, I was just reading an article on another website about a woman who uses ingdirect.com because she can have unlimited accts and can name them. (ie vacation fund, car fund, emergency fund, etc.) Thinking I may set this up myself.

[red92s]

Coincidently, I was just reading an article on another website about a woman who uses ingdirect.com because she can have unlimited accts and can name them. (ie vacation fund, car fund, emergency fund, etc.) Thinking I may set this up myself.

I do this. I think I have about 5 different ING savings accounts (automotive, tax, Roth, etc). The day after my direct deposits arrive, I have automatic transfers set up to shuttle the proper amount of money to the proper place. EF is separate with HSBC.

It works for me and thats what counts, but some might think it's complex.

[irmanator]

Well I already had the emergency fund set up, now I have a vacation and new car fund. I started with small amts to get used to it and will up it just as I have my ef.

[whitestripe]

i prefer the idea of having multiple separate accounts (if they all earn interest combined - like ING).
but since we bought our house, it makes more sense financially to have everything in one account.
our main account is an interest offset account, which means the total of this account is deducted from the amount owing on our mortgage at the end of each month before interest is calculated.
so we have our EF in there as well as our everyday money/buffer. we buy everything on our credit card to get the reward points (and also because the credit card is due a couple of days after the start of the month, thereby we maximise use of our offset funds)
any long term savings we transfer into our mortgage account. there are no fees for redraw or extra payments. i keep track of these on a spreadsheet, so they are separate (on paper) from our regular extra payments on the mortgage.
i have a separate account for bills, into which i transfer $180 a week. at the end of each month i tally up the bills paid (credit card statement is handy for this task!) and transfer that amount back into our checking account.
it's not a huge amount so i do not mind that we are missing the interest on that - and it helps me see how much our bills are and if we are staying on budget etc. also at the end of the year, i can work out if we have any surplus bill money and then we can do something special with that.

it is difficult to get the hang of at the start, but after a while i got used to it and don't mind only having a few accounts to think about.

[zetta]

I put almost everything into one checking and one savings account, and then use envelope-style budget software (YNAB -- Personal Budget Software - Free Home Budgeting Course for the Family) to track all the catagories. The small emergencies (car/home/medical deductibles), estimated taxes, and semi-annual bills are in the savings account. The large emergency fund (in case of layoff only) is in a separate money market account. The day to day stuff is in checking.

On the investment side, we've got a ridiculous number of accounts -- 2 traditional IRA's, 2 ROTH IRA's, SEP-IRA, 401k, DH's stock trading account, company ESPP/stock option acccount, my taxable investment account, 529 plan.

[fruitbowlk]

I have an Emergency fund
Car fund
vacation fund
house fund
christmas fund

[disneysteve]

To me, money is money. It doesn't matter which account it is in or what I choose to call it. It is all just one big pot and gets drawn from as needed (the exceptions being retirement and college savings). So I do not have a car fund and a house fund and a vacation fund and a medical fund. I just have savings. The money is spread out in different places but that is for investment reasons, not for reasons of compartmentalizing which money is for which purpose.

I guess this is the same mindset that has my wife and I consider all money to be joint money. We don't have MY money and HER money. It all goes into the same pot.

[MonkeyMama]

We have various savings goals and think it's extremely important to know what we are saving for, and how much we have saved for various long-term saving goals.

That being said, I don't put things in account according to what they are saved for.

We have a couple of savings accounts, in attempts to get the best interest rate returns. In excel I track how much we have for "short term savings," "mid-term savings," and for emergency. The total of these excel sheets equals the cash I have, total. I guess I don't find it practical to divide my money by each individual goal.

For me, it's not as simple as I have x for my car and x for vacation. I have x. If everything in my house falls apart ahead of schedule, I am buying a more modest car and skipping vacation. If we have a windfall, we may spend more on vacation or buy a nicer car. I try to save as much as I think I will need, but try to keep it flexible in that regard. Probably another reason I don't track every little category possible.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Nope. I have one account and I just use it gas needed.

[maat55]

I keep my personal EF and car fund together. The rest I just pay out of checking accounts. I have multiple entries for different savings objectives in my business account, such as: Tax fund, Business EF, Van fund, building fund. These all add up to many thousands, but my account balance(home quikbooks) is minus them.

I actually have 3 EF's and two car funds, etc. But they are all contained into 3 accounts.

[Ima saver]

I have a checking account that pays 2% interest. I keep track of my different accounts ( car fund, property tax and insurances, medical, christmas, heating etc.) all on a paper I keep in the checkbook. I ususally keep track of the interest seperately and use it often for charity.

[GREENBACK]

I only have a savings account, a couple of checking accounts, and 3 retirement accounts. My main interest is staying in the "black" month to month. I could divide all this up to pay for various things but that just gets too complicated to suit me.

Accounts for home, vacations, vehicles, pet care or whatever category only seem to be one more thing to track. I have enough things to keep track of without adding to the confusion. I know there are savings and interest advantages to putting things in different places but it doesn't seem real great to me at the moment.

The convience of a few accounts works for me.

[olga1311]

Currently I have a 401K account(through work) and a ROTH IRA account and an emergency fund. I am in process of signing up for ING so I can have targeted goals saving accounts (as others said you can create multiple sub accounts in your main ING savings account).

[sk24iam]

I only have two bank accounts and one retirement account. It would be nice to create categories within my savings account for specific purposes. I don't understand why all banks don't do this.