general savings vs specific goals

amhill87 · January 2015

Now that I am not buying a car I am re-working my financial plan. I was originally going to work savings for specific goals, it school and car, as well as my e fund. But wasn't sure how to effectively utilize a good plan. So then I came up with just focus on 2 savings account, my regular savings which will be for car, school, etc, and then have my e fund. Probably start my down payment savings for the condo once I hit 6 months e fund.

lifeonthehill · January 2015

I don't think it really matters as long as you are saving enough.

H and I are able to be more focused on our goals by having specifics. We go from working on one goal and switching to another and then going back again. All our attention focuses on one thing and it makes us feel more productive.

In case my explanation was confusing here is our current plan. Right now we are saving for a new car. We will focus all of our saving on the car until May. Then we will switch to saving for my fall semester until around September. Then we will go back to saving for the car until we have all of the money saved.

CuriousKiddosMama · January 2015

We tend to save for several things at once. Although truly it all goes into the same savings account, so if we were to have an emergency and need to do a house repair or whatever, we would probably just use the money we were saving for travel and then replace that ASAP. I don't know that it makes min of a difference just so long as you are disciplined about it, and not everything becomes an emergency.

vlagrl29 · January 2015

DH and I had a long convo last night about financial goals. I have a tendency to want everything all at one time and have a hard time balancing it out. Basically we need more money for all my long term wants - lol. Right now we have an E fund and a home improvement fund and obviously IRA contributions. I would also love to pay off my students loans in a super fast way, but after our talk last night I would really like to have home updates as well (hardwood floors and finished off basement) . THEN I thought well we might as well buy a new house with all the things I want.

jessica490 · January 2015

We save for specific goals at capitalone360.com. We have 4 different online accounts right now: House down payment, E-fund, vacation, and mortgage principle. They change as our financial goals change and I like them because you can have as many sub-accounts as you want (I think). Once we have a house we will just have our e-fund, vacation, and a ROTH IRA account that we will be starting. I like keeping the money separate so we can easily track our progress.

amhill87 · January 2015

I bank at boa and my concern is having too many savings accounts.

CuriousKiddosMama · January 2015

I think savings accounts at boa are free, so I wouldn't worry about having too many of that helps keep you organized. I would double check to make sure they are free before you open a couple and incur fees from them.

Xstatic3333 · January 2015

We have one savings account at our credit union for homeowners' insurance, car tax, quarterlies, and small car repairs. At Capital One 360 we currently have two accounts, the e-fund and the Macchu Picchu fund. Soon we'll be starting a third for our next car-we'll pay our "payments" into this once ours are paid off.

I can't say enough about Capital One 360. You can have up to 16 accounts, and they all let you set goals and show your progress. It's super easy to deposit checks or transfer to and from your bank. You get a little interest, 0.75% maybe.

I do think one goal at a time is probably more productive, but I can't make myself follow it. For example, I probably should just be building our e-fund, but it's got a sizable sum, I'm 30, and I really want one more non-kid friendly vacation before TTC.

amhill87 · January 2015

I don't want children so that is I don't need to save for. But I do want to get my bachelors and masters without loans. So I would like to get a few semesters in savings before I start as one class is $1200. My game plan is build reg to 1000 then focus on e fund to 3 months. Then maybe focus on goals.

hoffse · January 2015

vikingsfan711 said:

We tend to save for several things at once. Although truly it all goes into the same savings account, so if we were to have an emergency and need to do a house repair or whatever, we would probably just use the money we were saving for travel and then replace that ASAP. I don't know that it makes min of a difference just so long as you are disciplined about it, and not everything becomes an emergency.

**STUCK IN THE BOX

This is what we do. We have several savings funds "named" but the reality is I move money around between them a lot - usually to account for a good deal or because something comes up that needs repair.

Example: I pulled $$ from my "LLM fund" (tax degree) and bought flights to Paris when I found them for less than $900/each round trip for the middle of summer. That was about half of what we were expecting to pay so I jumped on it and then "paid back" my LLM fund a couple weeks later with money that I was originally intending to add to our vacation fund. It worked out to being the same thing in the long run, I just had enough in one "fund" to cover flights, but I didn't have enough in the actual "vacation fund" to cover flights when that deal popped up.

We have also discovered that one of the pipes in the wall of our basement is probably cracked and leaking a really gross smell into the basement. We will be paying a plumber to help us fix that this week. That's coming from the emergency fund, which I will pay back when we get paid at the end of the month.

I think keeping a decent e-fund around is pretty important, or at least keeping enough liquid in all of your accounts at once to accommodate some major thing coming up, so that you can shift money around in a pinch. I would not sleep well at night with less than $5,000 designated for "emergencies" plus several other "funds" that we can tap into for non-emergencies (like getting the great deal on plane tickets).

Most months nothing exciting - either good or bad - is happening, and so that's when I just stick with the plan and contribute to several things at once. But once in awhile the order of priorities changes.

smbenevides1989 · January 2015

I have 4 savings accounts: DD1 savings, DD2 savings, vacation, payoff/house/e-fund.

The last savings as you can see holds three different goals. I have a spreadsheet that separates that savings into the goals and helps me figure how much I have saved for each. Right now, all my money is being saved into the payoff part of the goal so at the end of each month I can take that money and put it towards one of my debts in the snowball. I have some money in the e-fund, and knowing how much I have in each helps me avoid "overusing" the account. Once the debt is over, the house and e-fund will get paid in equal amounts until I reach my ideal amount.

cbee817 · January 2015

hoffse said:

vikingsfan711 said:

We tend to save for several things at once. Although truly it all goes into the same savings account, so if we were to have an emergency and need to do a house repair or whatever, we would probably just use the money we were saving for travel and then replace that ASAP. I don't know that it makes min of a difference just so long as you are disciplined about it, and not everything becomes an emergency.

**STUCK IN THE BOX

This is what we do. We have several savings funds "named" but the reality is I move money around between them a lot - usually to account for a good deal or because something comes up that needs repair.

Example: I pulled $$ from my "LLM fund" (tax degree) and bought flights to Paris when I found them for less than $900/each round trip for the middle of summer. That was about half of what we were expecting to pay so I jumped on it and then "paid back" my LLM fund a couple weeks later with money that I was originally intending to add to our vacation fund. It worked out to being the same thing in the long run, I just had enough in one "fund" to cover flights, but I didn't have enough in the actual "vacation fund" to cover flights when that deal popped up.

We have also discovered that one of the pipes in the wall of our basement is probably cracked and leaking a really gross smell into the basement. We will be paying a plumber to help us fix that this week. That's coming from the emergency fund, which I will pay back when we get paid at the end of the month.

I think keeping a decent e-fund around is pretty important, or at least keeping enough liquid in all of your accounts at once to accommodate some major thing coming up, so that you can shift money around in a pinch. I would not sleep well at night with less than $5,000 designated for "emergencies" plus several other "funds" that we can tap into for non-emergencies (like getting the great deal on plane tickets).

Most months nothing exciting - either good or bad - is happening, and so that's when I just stick with the plan and contribute to several things at once. But once in awhile the order of priorities changes.

Make sure they run a camera through your entire sewer line- our crack in the clay tile pipe was outside of the house, but the sump pump and drain tile system was taking the waste in like it was water/snow (basically doing its job). Our basement had a bad smell too and when the plumber put the camera down, he could see the giant crack underneath our front porch. That area where the crack was doesn't have a basement under it so they dug up the entire yard to the porch, cut a hole in our basement floor and fed the new PVC through. All of our clay tile is gone- it's cast iron and PVC now. We have a a big mound of dirt going the entire length of our front yard.. it's covered in snow right now, but it was quite the job. Total bill $8,200 for 2 full days of work and all permits from our village. Hopefully yours isn't as bad, but a quick snake or a water jet will only temporarily relieve the smell if you have clay tile. Good luck!

brij2006 · January 2015

I personally would focus on the efund first, then start the next item on the list. That way you can achieve small goals quickly and keep the motivation going.

hoffse · January 2015

cbee817 said:

hoffse said:

vikingsfan711 said:

We tend to save for several things at once. Although truly it all goes into the same savings account, so if we were to have an emergency and need to do a house repair or whatever, we would probably just use the money we were saving for travel and then replace that ASAP. I don't know that it makes min of a difference just so long as you are disciplined about it, and not everything becomes an emergency.

**STUCK IN THE BOX

This is what we do. We have several savings funds "named" but the reality is I move money around between them a lot - usually to account for a good deal or because something comes up that needs repair.

Example: I pulled $$ from my "LLM fund" (tax degree) and bought flights to Paris when I found them for less than $900/each round trip for the middle of summer. That was about half of what we were expecting to pay so I jumped on it and then "paid back" my LLM fund a couple weeks later with money that I was originally intending to add to our vacation fund. It worked out to being the same thing in the long run, I just had enough in one "fund" to cover flights, but I didn't have enough in the actual "vacation fund" to cover flights when that deal popped up.

We have also discovered that one of the pipes in the wall of our basement is probably cracked and leaking a really gross smell into the basement. We will be paying a plumber to help us fix that this week. That's coming from the emergency fund, which I will pay back when we get paid at the end of the month.

I think keeping a decent e-fund around is pretty important, or at least keeping enough liquid in all of your accounts at once to accommodate some major thing coming up, so that you can shift money around in a pinch. I would not sleep well at night with less than $5,000 designated for "emergencies" plus several other "funds" that we can tap into for non-emergencies (like getting the great deal on plane tickets).

Most months nothing exciting - either good or bad - is happening, and so that's when I just stick with the plan and contribute to several things at once. But once in awhile the order of priorities changes.

Make sure they run a camera through your entire sewer line- our crack in the clay tile pipe was outside of the house, but the sump pump and drain tile system was taking the waste in like it was water/snow (basically doing its job). Our basement had a bad smell too and when the plumber put the camera down, he could see the giant crack underneath our front porch. That area where the crack was doesn't have a basement under it so they dug up the entire yard to the porch, cut a hole in our basement floor and fed the new PVC through. All of our clay tile is gone- it's cast iron and PVC now. We have a a big mound of dirt going the entire length of our front yard.. it's covered in snow right now, but it was quite the job. Total bill $8,200 for 2 full days of work and all permits from our village. Hopefully yours isn't as bad, but a quick snake or a water jet will only temporarily relieve the smell if you have clay tile. Good luck!

Thanks - hopefully it won't be that bad! The basement was put on as an addition back in the 80's, and the pipes down there are all PVC. However, he said it looks like the current bathroom down there was a DIY job that used some "creative" plumbing techniques, and chances are it just cracked one of the pipes in the walls over time. Our master bath is also directly over it, so the pipes in that area get a ton of use. The plumber has already opened the walls and is pretty sure he knows the general area it's coming from. He's going to smoke bomb the pipes and see if he can find the crack on Friday. If he can't, then he'll do the camera thing to find it. We're on septic, so there's not too many places it can go before it hits the septic tank (which is literally on the other side of the wall), and the septic system was cleaned/inspected about 10 months before we bought the house.

Thankfully, he charges by the hour, and he's a really smart guy. He spent an hour there yesterday eliminating the most likely causes (and all the fixtures), before beginning to open the walls. He finally determined it needed to be smoke bombed, and he didn't have any with him, so he's coming back later this week. It's a frustrating problem, but it's obviously something that has to be taken care of. The basement bathroom is also just covered with this horrible brown tile. If he has to open the walls in the bathroom, he may be going through some of that tile and de-installing the awful vanity down there that's falling apart. If so, I'm going to view it as an opportunity to do a budget update that space, since much of the demo work will have been done for us.

formerlyGDaisy09 · January 2015

We also have multiple named savings accounts, H's income fluctuates month to month, so we try to live on a budget that his lowest income supports and when he makes extra it goes to savings. I have an excel calculator that i plug our budget into every month and track our spending, at the end of the month it tells us what we can transfer to savings and I assign percentages to each savings account:

Savings (this functions as our efund)

at least 10% of our surplus each month goes here. In addition to serving as our e-fund I also have money for quarterly and biannual expenses divided out over the year that goes in here every month. so when we have a water or propane bill that's due the money is sitting in this account. once we get this to our goal of 6 months we may not transfer anything but those quarterly and biannual expenses to this fund.

Vacations

this is both to fund larger vacations and weekends away (hotel stays for weddings!) last year a big vacation was a goal and I had 30% of our surplus money going here, we have other goals right now so only 10% goes to this account.

Home Improvements

this is both for minor repairs and major renovations, we are currently focused on a basement renovation so we can have a guest room when we convert our second bedroom to a nursury. right now 75% of our surplus money goes to this account.

appliances/computers

this fund is for appliance repairs, computer purchases, etc...we live in a gadgity world, things break or get outdated. right now only 5% of surplus goes here.

cars

this covers us for things like oil changes, registration, repairs, and eventually a down payment. this one I have a set $75 built into our budget each month, but our calculator is set so I can add a percentage of our surplus to that account when buying a new to us car needs to be more of a priority.

als1982 · January 2015

Gdaisy09 said:
We also have multiple named savings accounts, H's income fluctuates month to month, so we try to live on a budget that his lowest income supports and when he makes extra it goes to savings. I have an excel calculator that i plug our budget into every month and track our spending, at the end of the month it tells us what we can transfer to savings and I assign percentages to each savings account:

Savings (this functions as our efund)
at least 10% of our surplus each month goes here. In addition to serving as our e-fund I also have money for quarterly and biannual expenses divided out over the year that goes in here every month. so when we have a water or propane bill that's due the money is sitting in this account. once we get this to our goal of 6 months we may not transfer anything but those quarterly and biannual expenses to this fund.
Vacations
this is both to fund larger vacations and weekends away (hotel stays for weddings!) last year a big vacation was a goal and I had 30% of our surplus money going here, we have other goals right now so only 10% goes to this account.
Home Improvements
this is both for minor repairs and major renovations, we are currently focused on a basement renovation so we can have a guest room when we convert our second bedroom to a nursury. right now 75% of our surplus money goes to this account.
appliances/computers
this fund is for appliance repairs, computer purchases, etc...we live in a gadgity world, things break or get outdated. right now only 5% of surplus goes here.
cars
this covers us for things like oil changes, registration, repairs, and eventually a down payment. this one I have a set $75 built into our budget each month, but our calculator is set so I can add a percentage of our surplus to that account when buying a new to us car needs to be more of a priority.

What a great system!

formerlyGDaisy09 · January 2015

als1982 said:

We also have multiple named savings accounts, H's income fluctuates month to month, so we try to live on a budget that his lowest income supports and when he makes extra it goes to savings. I have an excel calculator that i plug our budget into every month and track our spending, at the end of the month it tells us what we can transfer to savings and I assign percentages to each savings account:

Savings (this functions as our efund)
at least 10% of our surplus each month goes here. In addition to serving as our e-fund I also have money for quarterly and biannual expenses divided out over the year that goes in here every month. so when we have a water or propane bill that's due the money is sitting in this account. once we get this to our goal of 6 months we may not transfer anything but those quarterly and biannual expenses to this fund.
Vacations
this is both to fund larger vacations and weekends away (hotel stays for weddings!) last year a big vacation was a goal and I had 30% of our surplus money going here, we have other goals right now so only 10% goes to this account.
Home Improvements
this is both for minor repairs and major renovations, we are currently focused on a basement renovation so we can have a guest room when we convert our second bedroom to a nursury. right now 75% of our surplus money goes to this account.
appliances/computers
this fund is for appliance repairs, computer purchases, etc...we live in a gadgity world, things break or get outdated. right now only 5% of surplus goes here.
cars
this covers us for things like oil changes, registration, repairs, and eventually a down payment. this one I have a set $75 built into our budget each month, but our calculator is set so I can add a percentage of our surplus to that account when buying a new to us car needs to be more of a priority.

What a great system!

Thank you! it works well for us! the basement is a priority since we are TTC, I also have a "snowball" line on the calculator that is at 0% right now, once we've funded the basement we're dropping the home improvement line back to 30% (we've got a few other lower priority house projects) and a portion (maybe 10%) of that 45% we can reallocate will go right to the debt snowball we're working to pay off student loans. and the other 35% will get broken up amongst our other accounts.

edited for words

general savings vs specific goals

Re: general savings vs specific goals

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