DH & I have always had our own bank accounts. They're both joint account and we each have full access, but my paycheck is deposited in one account at Bank A and DH's paycheck is deposited in one account at Bank B.
Six years ago we moved to our current town. There are no locations of Bank B (a gigantic national bank) within 250 miles of our home. DH has always thought of that as a money saver, in that we cannot easily access the account for cash. I view it as a PITA, as we cannot easily make deposits, either. (Obviously some of this has changed with banks allowing photo deposits and such) There are numerous locations of Bank A in our current town, including branches inside the grocery store.
DH is finally on board with closing his account at Bank B and having a truly joint account at Bank A- both of our paychecks would be deposited to the same account. (Reluctance always came from laziness, no real reason) However, I recently discovered that Bank C, the bank that holds our mortgage, offers various rewards to customers who have their mortgage and bank accounts there. I'm starting to think DH should close that B account and open one at C. There are several locations of Bank C, but not nearly as convenient as Bank A. I'm not as concerned, though, as I know where to find a branch in an emergency.
Each of our respective accounts were opened before we were married. That's the only reason we have these two different accounts- it's just always been this way. Money issues have nothing to do with this, as we each have full access to the other account and consider them communal.
Other than the rewards at Bank C (which have not been confirmed, this is all based on a pop up that I saw when paying the mortgage online the other day) is there an advantage to having less money at two banks or more (all) money at one bank?
We have 2 banks. One is online (USAA) and the other is local and we have our mortgage through them. We put the bulk of our money in the USAA accounts and transfer money to local bank when we need to. The balance is always pretty low. We got a discount on our mortgage rate when we opened the account so it was a no brainer for us.
is there an advantage to having less money at two banks or more (all) money at one bank?
Not as far as I can see. I find having one account at one bank much simpler.
We have money at other banks for different purposes (e.g., savings at Capital One 360 to earn some interest), but I'm not generally interested in having redundant accounts that serve the same purpose, like two different local checking accounts.
I would poll friends to see if anyone uses Bank C. See what their experience has been with that particular bank and if they think it's worth it for your DH to switch. I think you need to have him at least move to Bank A anyway.
We have 2 savings ( 1 each), 1 Money Market and 1 joint checking at the same bank. The different savings accounts gave us a little autonomy on our different savings goals. Logging-in to one bank and having everything in one place is great. I just have to log-in under his account to see his savings or mine to see mine.
Before we got married, I had my accounts at Hometown Bank, and MH had his with a Nationwide Bank. We bought a house in another town and got our mortgage through Nationwide Bank. After about a year of living in the new time, I closed my Hometown Bank account and opened one at Nationwide Bank. It makes it a lot easier to transfer money and keep track of things, plus it's nice not to have to drive back to Hometown Bank if something needs to be taken care of in person.
I would poll friends to see if anyone uses Bank C. See what their experience has been with that particular bank and if they think it's worth it for your DH to switch. I think you need to have him at least move to Bank A anyway.
Bank C is also a major national bank and we have had absolutely no issues with our mortgage. Our mortgage ended up there because they bought our mortgage, we did not seek them out when we refinanced. ILs just closed on their house yesterday with this bank and have only had wonderful things to say. (FWIW, we DID seek out Bank A for our refinance and were given a complete runaround and numerous miscommunications. We ended up using an independent mortgage broker)
We've had 2 banks because DH gets a paper paycheck and it's easy for him to deposit it in "his" bank. I like it because "my" bank I pay most of the misc stuff from- daycare, Target, groceries, utilities, etc. His account is used for the house payment and a few other things. I can use his bank to pay a credit card or whatever but I like that I can forecast out what comes out of his money. And it's easiest for him to deposit his money and grab cash from. My bank is getting more locations so we can access cash easy at either account. We operate from both checking accounts and use his bank savings account as an escrow account for property taxes and insurance. I don't know that there is a real benefit to doing 1 bank vs 2 though. I like it for the separation of our bills and ability to save in different ways.
We have three banks: 1) main bank for day to day, 2) online savings account because higher interest rate, and 3) small account at another national bank that has no international atm fees. We have multiple accounts at the first bank, because we each have our own accounts, a joint account, and then our business accounts. It gets a bit complicated sometimes.
We have three banks: 1) main bank for day to day, 2) online savings account because higher interest rate, and 3) small account at another national bank that has no international atm fees. We have multiple accounts at the first bank, because we each have our own accounts, a joint account, and then our business accounts. It gets a bit complicated sometimes.
Same with us (except I'm about to open #3, for that reason, see my other post lol).
Bank 1 has our check and savings, which is a holding tank before we transfer to either online savings or brokerage account. And a few other accounts for good measure. It's easy to live money between them, and I like having them all in one place.
Oh, FWIW, we were in the sand boat as OP for the first 5 years of marriage. Just never got around to combining accounts. Finally gave in when we moved and me bank was on the other side of town. I'm not entirely sure why, since it's the same money coming in and out, but our savings rate seemed to go way up after we combined. Maybe it's just the power of large numbers looking larger than the two halves, but it felt good.
Citibank is our every day bank, but we keep money at Capital One as well. Capital One has our rainy day/emergency money that we tend to forget about. I like to keep it out of sight.
Post by crashgizmo on Jul 22, 2014 10:21:23 GMT -5
We mainly bank with USAA, because DH has been a member for years and they've always been great, plus you can use any ATM anywhere and they credit the fees back to you. We used to have 2 checking and 1 savings, but when we moved to CA and I wasn't working we finally just combined them for ease of paying bills.
Then a few months ago we got an offer from Chase (whom we use as our main credit card) to pay us $500 if we opened a savings account and kept at least $10K in it for 6 months. So since we have more than than in our e-fund at USAA, we just moved it over. Since our savings account interest rates are next to nothing, we figured this "bonus" was better than nothing. Frankly I'll probably just leave it there, as I think the 6 months are up soon. There are a ton of Chase branches around here and I like the fact that I have a brick and mortar bank in case I ever needed a huge sum of cash.
Post by bostonmichelle on Jul 22, 2014 11:26:53 GMT -5
We have a checking account with TD Bank and then a checking account and several savings accounts at Capital One 360. I get a paper paycheck so I like being able to deposit them either in person and get cash quick or I can deposit to the online account. We just use the TD Bank account to get cash for groceries and I write a couple checks out of there a week for the dog's daycare and obedience class.
We maintain a joint and two separate checking accounts at one bank. It's nice because when I sign in I can see my individual account and our joint account, and transfers between them are instantaneous. The bank also happened to have bought our mortgage and I have a credit card through them. I like having it all accessible on one site.