Where do you keep your various "funds"?

courtneykalob · November 2013

I have a silly question for everyone. We just got married last month, and have been seriously looking at long term goals and dreams. How do you separate your various savings such as emergency fund, savings, down-payments, future children, vacations...blah blah blah? Do you have separate bank accounts for all of these savings or keep them separate in another way? TIA!

anssett · November 2013

Yes. I have several savings accounts at the same credit union. We use

checking - joint

checking - personal (my husband's personal account is with another bank)

money market - E-fund (this is essentially a savings at a slightly better rate)

savings - house

savings - vacation

savings - retirement for Roth that calendar year (I choose to pay this once a year instead of monthly)

There is software (like You Need A Budget) that will do this for you, but I like the multiple accounts. It makes Mint cleaner too.

Wulfgar · November 2013

MW and I have our own accounts where are paychecks go into. Since I make more then she does, I transfer a portion of my income to her so she can pay the mortgage and utilities.

Here is our joint accounts;
Savings account for emergencies, home repairs, and annual/ semi-annual bills such as car insurance.
Savings account attached to checking account for vacations, fun items, and child expenses that don't come out of our personal accounts.
PNC wallet for our home repair loan and cash for groceries, monthly misc, and my gas. Once we pay the loan off we will most likely cancel this account.

That doesn't include individual retirement accounts and other things that MW and I have. We dated 9 years and have been married a little over a year. For us, things are working well the way that we have it set up since I have a lot of my bills coming out of my accounts automatically and she does the same.

Mom987 · November 2013

We have both paychecks go into one account, then a second checking which used to be our "everyday spending," and a savings ($1,000 e-fund). We then got a rewards credit card so our everyday spending goes on there (paid off weekly) and the "second" checking doesn't really get used but has a few hundred in it. Our "3-6 month emergency fund" is split between two mutual fund accounts. Right now our emergency fund is like 7.5 months living expenses, so all extra goes toward mortgage.

Xstatic3333 · November 2013

We have separate checking accounts. Even though we plan as a couple, I still tend to pay "my" bills from my check, and he from his. We have a 10 K e-fund in a MM at Citizens Bank. I like Citizens for an e-fund location since it is open Sundays and some holidays. Each of our checking accounts has a savings attached to it that earns 4% interest on the first $3000 (seriously!) We use these for travel, personal wants, and short term unexpected things like car repair. Nothing comes out unless there will be a good buffer left behind. We plan to start an online savings account next month to start building a down payment fund. For us, having the e-fund or down payment fund at the same bank as our checking is way too much temptation. I also have a Roth IRA at Fidelity, which is only getting about 8% of my take home right now but I've been able to keep it consistent.

MommyLiberty5013 · November 2013

Joint checking for all the bill paying/check writing/direct deposit, etc.

Joint savings for e-fund and anything else. We have one account but track the amounts of the fund allocations in Excel.

Each of the kids have savings (3 accounts).

Then I have a checking for a small sales business I have.

That's it.

Ducktale · November 2013

We have one checking and one savings, so all of our savings goes into the one account, and then I keep something like a ledger with the balance of each "fund" where the money is allocated. I do this for long term savings goals, as well as short term (for example, set a small amount of money aside each month for Christmas gifts).

vlagrl29 · November 2013

joint checking and savings (E Fund plus annual bill fund) accounts, separate business accounts, separate retirement accounts. DD has her savings account as well.

hoffse · November 2013

H and I have the following:

-Joint checking with Wells Fargo: This is where paychecks are deposited. This is also the account we pay bills from. I keep just enough in here to pay bills and about $100 over for those random $20 ATM withdrawals that happen once in awhile.

-H's checking with a local bank: This is the account that holds H's student loan disbursement funds. He is finishing his last year of law school, so once that is done we will be closing this account. In general, we feel income and debts are joint because we're married. However, for his student loan funds we decided to separate them so that we spend as little as possible from that account. He takes out enough to cover his major expenses (ie: he pays a second rent because his law school is about 3 hours away). However, I pay for whatever I can out of the regular checking account in terms of things like groceries and gas. If we ever come up a bit short any given month, I pull some money from his account to cover it. But that is rare. Basically we structure it this way so we don't use his loan money for things that we can afford on just my income. Whatever is left at the end of the year we will "pay back" when we close the account. This means he is borrowing a lot less than most of his friends in school.

-Joint savings with Well's Fargo: This account has about $2 in it. It's linked to our Well's Fargo checking account. I hate it because every time I pay a bill $1 gets transferred to this account to "help me save." It's so dumb. But Wells Fargo won't let me close the damn thing without charging a fee on our checking account, so we keep it.

-Brokerage account at Fidelity: This is our true $10K emergency fund. It's invested.... so it's actually a bit more than $10K right now. This is joint.

-Checking account at Fidelity: This is our "slush fund." We put money for large purchases here that we usually have to save for. For instance, we are planning on taking a trip to London next summer after H takes the bar exam. This is where money for London will go. It's also where we keep our house down payment. It's just all together in one account and I kind of keep track of how it should be allocated... though to be honest, since buying a house depends largely on price and inventory, the "allocations" aren't set in stone. I just sort of do it in my head.

The checking account at Fidelity is a little redundant - we could keep that money in savings account at Wells Fargo - but we earn more interest at Fidelity. Also, we have a debit card associated with this account that is pretty universal, and Fidelity reimburses our ATM fees, including foreign ATM fees. So we like having a large store of cash sitting there in case we need to make an emergency withdrawal or something.

hoffse · November 2013

Oh yeah, and each of us has a Roth IRA. Those can't be joint by law. H also has a rollover IRA from when he rolled over a 401(k) from his old job after starting law school.

I also have a regular 401(k) and a Roth 401(k). H will have both as well once he graduates and begins working. Again, these can't be joint.

Even though the retirement accounts can't be joint, we have given each other trading privileges so that we can buy, sell, and trade on each other's accounts. Definitely not for everybody but it works for us. We don't do it without talking to the other first. And frankly, we both check it every day, so we would know if the other had done a trade without discussing it first.

That makes them about as joint as possible, so if one of us were incapacitated the other could keep managing the account.

I know a lot of people prefer to keep things separate, and that's fine. In fact, it's probably good if you and your H aren't exactly on the same page in terms of your approach to money and spending.

However, H and I keep things as joint as possible so that if one of us were to die, we wouldn't have to wait for a death certificate in order to access the funds in other accounts. As co-owners, we can access them regardless of what happens. It's also important for incapacity... in the case of a not-quite-fatal car accident, for instance, you won't be eligible to access accounts that name you as the beneficiary.... because your H will still technically be alive. You will also not receive proceeds from life insurance in that instance. H and I figure that the last thing we want to do if the other were to die or become incapacitated is have to worry about being able to access bank accounts.

OP, I'm not saying that everything for you should be joint - but if it's not, you might want to think about how you would handle these issues if they happened. It's not fun to think about, but it's important to think about since death is inevitable.

One other thing - in my and H's relationship we both handle money. If one of us were to die, the other would know what to do. In my parents' relationship, it is primarily my dad who handles it. He and my mom talk openly about it, but she's not as saavy as he is about things like taxes, mortgages, insurance, etc. So, he keeps a file in their safe with detailed descriptions of every account and major asset they own and what she needs to do if he dies or becomes incapacitated. I have a copy as well so that I can step in and help her if my dad dies first. Any time something changes, he updates the file.

maple2 · November 2013

For savings goals that are relatively short-term or need easy access, we put money into a joint checking or savings account. For longer term goals like retirement or college savings, we have accounts with Fidelity. We do not budget as precisely as many people on this board, so we are fine having our e-fund mixed with our down payment mixed with vacation savings mixed with car repair money, for example. We have a rough idea of how much of that money is for each purpose rather than an exact amount. This works well for us because we don't have many "big" things we are saving for outside of retirement right now. Once we stop paying for child care and have older kids so we can more seriously include travel as part of our lives, we may have to get more precise.

jessica490 · November 2013

Bank of America

We use a joint checking account for paychecks/bills with a linked savings account (keep the change, we never have much money in there)

Capital One 360 online

We keep all our different savings account in here. You can use sub categories. For us we have House DP, E-Fund, and a Vacation fund and they are all seperate but under 1 account.

lifeonthehill · November 2013

Local credit union

"Prime Savings"- Currently our general savings and our E fund
"Special Saving"- Where we put all my checks and extra cash to save enough money to pay off the next SL.
"Classic Checking"- Where all of our bill money goes so we can write the checks.
"Free Checking"- Fun money! We don't use this very often because we don't do much.

orangehills · November 2013

We only have a few.. I have a high interest checking at Schwab that is our efund. It earns interest, but we have checks/check card with it so we can get it out immediately if needed- thus it being for an efund. Then we have 2 joints savings and a joint checking at our normal local credit union bank- one savings for car stuff (insurance, registration, maintenance) and the other is for everything else- vacations, future down payment. We don't have kids yet so that's not an issue for us. Then we each have an IRA and retirement with our work.

MrsS728 · November 2013

My husband and I had a separate account for the down payment and that was it. The we had a joint checking and (emergency) savings together and then there was a separate (house) account in my name only. We had to keep my husband's name off of the account due to an ongoing legal situation with his father's estate. It was the only way to protect our down payment. Once we wrote the check for our down payment, that account was closed and anything left over was transferred to the savings.

dragonstarjk · November 2013

H and I have separate checking accounts and each pay designated bills out of those. I maintain our savings accounts but he gives me money to put in them. We've just always kept our accounts separate and it's worked out great. Here's a list of all of our accounts:

H-checking

Me-checking

High yield online savings--e-fund

Savings--vacation

Savings--home improvements, misc.

Plus we each have a 401K, Roth IRA, etc.

Edited to add: I work at a bank and I definitely want to echo some of what hoffse said. If you are going to have separate accounts, PLEASE take time to make sure you have named beneficiaries, make each other POA, etc. Take to your attorney to ensure that there won't be any issues in the unfortunate event that something would happen to one of you.

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