Talk to me about savings

[egeiger]

My goal for this year is to be more intentional in our savings. Right now we save specifically for retirement, Christmas, vacations, our kid (car/college) and then a general fund for everything else.

Curious what other buckets you regularly allocate money to for your savings goals.

[melmel48]

General savings, christmas, cats, running ( races and gear), vavation

I am saving specifically for a car down payment and a bathroom reno. 

[laurenh]

We have both long term (greater than 1 year) and short term savings (generally used within 1 year) that we contribute to, as well as 529s and employer retirement accounts.

Long term buckets are: emergency fund, braces, vacations, car purchase/maintenance, home improvement, pets, and kids (this will likely move into a mutual fund investment at some point for small financial support in their future like weddings, down payment, etc).

Short term buckets are: Back to school, Christmas, gifts/holidays (birthdays and smaller holidays), and insurance (home and auto).

It might be a lot for some people but it helps me stay organized and let's us shift money into defined pots as priorities change.

[Cappy]

I've started using my CapitalOne 360 sub accounts in such a way that I (re)name them based on a goal. I have the following 6 right now.

These 3 stay the same:

House Escrow (Taxes, Insurance, HOA)
Emergency Fund (6 months expenses)
Kids' Money (birthday $, etc.)

These 3 change based on what I'm saving for and how I earmark the funds:

Short Term Savings (project-based savings goals)
Vacation
Medical

[ohgillian]

This is something that my financial planner encouraged us to be more deliberate about maybe 2 years ago. Before that, we just threw everything else (aside from retirement/college) into the general "savings" and then spent it when we needed it without good planning.

Now I have this spreadsheet that plans out anticipated large expenses by year over the next decade (and for the current year, by month). It has summer childcare, planned house and yard projects, charitable giving, taxes and insurance payments, saving for the next car (which actually I transfer out to a vanguard account), travel, and then an "other" for unexpected stuff. This has definitely helped me manage the cashflow in that account.

ETA I also have a true emergency fund but that's separate from all this.

[picaflora]

I use YNAB to keep it all straight.

Some smaller categories I let the budget overflow so we aren't scrambling if something smaller comes up. This is for things like car maintenance, home maintenance, pets, and clothing.

Then general savings designations like our efund, charitable giving, gifts (including Christmas), vacation. These are things that I don't always know a specific amount for, so if I have extra one month I throw it into these categories. If we have a specific vacation planned and we have a ballpark cost, it gets saved elsewhere with a goal attached.

Then I have my wish farm categories. These have either a specific due date, amount, or both. My categories here are taxes, specific vacations, home upgrades/repairs (I had one for HVAC until it was replaced, now it's for a screen porch addition), next car down payment. These come and go as they are achieved or plans change. What I like about the wish farm is it's easy to adjust if plans or priorities shift. It also makes it easier to say "no" or "wait" to something as I can tell if we're stretched saving for other goals.

[turkletsmom]

We use the sub-accounts on CapOne 360 too for savings.
2 mos efund
vacation
kids money they get from gifts
tuition for private pre-k this Fall
general for purchases- right now it's a new couch, annual subscription renewals, etc.

Anything beyond that goes to our brokerage account at Vanguard.

[sadlebred]

Longer term savings (right now all for a new car in a few years): CDs even with the horrible interest rates. I need the $$ with no chance of losing it, so I won't put in with my investments.
My only other specific savings is for bikes--whether it's a parts upgrade, expensive parts replacement, new bike, etc.
Everything else is together.

[Deleted]

I only have 2: house repairs and maintenance/ renovation and primary savings. We keep our primary savings at a certain balance, then everything over that gets invested. The house repair/renovation fund is a constant churn account and it just depends on what we're doing.

Since i have a tendency to way over hoard cash, this pushes me to invest money i would otherwise have lying around doing really nothing for me.

[mlkgls]

I recently discovered BofA allows you to allocate your savings into various goals of your choice. I’m still tracking in excel for other reasons, but it’s a distinct improvement and appears to function similarly to Capital One.

My current short term goals/funds are escrow, easily accessible mini Efund, car replacement, pool repair, home repair, and vacation. 

[coffee]

Long term (invested) we have one account for each: retirement accounts, 529s, college account (apart from 529), vacation home, and extra mortgage payment.

Emergency fund in savings account. That one we do not contribute since we basically don’t use this money. We also call it “the lost account”

Short term (money that will be used during the yearr. We do the math of how much we will need every year, divide it by 12, and make monthly payments to this account. By the end of December this account has $0 balance. We start it every January. Here we add birthday parties, big birthday presents, Christmas, car service expenses, annual fees, Christmas and Vacations)

[covergirl82]

Right now we just have an e-fund money market and general money market at our CU. The general money market we use for non-emergency large purchases (e.g., vacations, Christmas, tax payments for our vacant land, new appliances/small home renos, etc.). I'd like to start a new savings account for our next vehicle purchases, which will be in around 4 -5 years (as long as we don't have any major issues with our current vehicles before then).