How many savings accounts do you have?

[fryjack2]

We have one general one that encompasses everything.  6 months of expenses, and monthly savings deposits.  Its large, but a lot of it will be spent this summer on house projects -not even fun ones. Sob.  The account is otherwise just used if we need to pull from it for traveling or tax bills or whatnot.  

I want to better track what is in our accounts in terms of how much we have put into different categories such as travel, reno savings, boat savings, etc.  

I guess I could open more Capitalone360 accounts and deposit money into each one that way.  Probably the easiest, right? Each one would make all of 0.8% interest, but its something. 

How do you save for multiple goals?

[Susie]

I have our e-fund at Capital One 360, our money for travel and splurges at FNBO Direct, and our "personal escrow account" in our local credit union.  (The last one is where I put money for property taxes, school taxes, homeowners/auto/umbrella insurance, and quarterly estimated taxes.)

So, 3.

[dcn]

We have our house savings at Vanguard but otherwise I have goals/sub accounts with SmartyPig/Sallie Mae.

[Deleted]

I have one. I used to have a Capital One 360 but it is not worth the % anymore so I closed the account. So I have one connected to my bank account and it has 1k in it. The rest is in vanguard settlement account for my investments. It chills out there to balance investments and cash. I cannot recall the interest rate but it's under a percent and I'm okay with that.
I keep an excel spreadsheet with my net worth I update monthly and saving categories with percentages for the saving goals so I know how close I am to each goal.

[k3am]

At Capital One I have 5 savings accounts with various automatic transfers set up. It works for us and makes perfect sense to me, but I'm sure someone else would wonder WTF we're doing.

[wildrice]

We have two through our PNC account - one is long term savings, which is where we keep our efund. The other is short term savings, which is kind of a catch all for things like house projects, travel, etc. I haven't broken them down any further than that because honestly, we often just pay for things out of our monthly budget (which has a lot of fluff AND a line for savings, so things like booking travel often just gradually come out of that).

We also have a treasury account for iBonds but I'm not sure that's really a "savings" account.

[mainelyfoolish]

Most of our savings is in one main account (at Capital One, formerly ING Direct) and I keep a Google spreadsheet where I roughly keep track of what I have allocated to car savings, travel, home improvement, etc. I find it’s easier to “move” money around in my spreadsheet instead of having to actually split money between different accounts.

That said, I do have two other small savings accounts - one at the same bank as my checking account (at a non-local bank) and one at a local bank that I can visit if I need something in person like a notary or medallion guarantee. DH and I also each have a Treasury Direct account with I-Bonds, some of which were purchased recently with money from savings to take advantage of the currently high interest rates and some of which are several years old and we consider to be our big emergency fund.

[wavepool]

We have six, and are thinking about a couple more. Mentally, I love the sinking funds method so we have vacation, car, school, savings, emergency, and house. I could probably just have four but I like it this way.

[expectantsteelerfan]

We have 3. We use our efund one to also fund big house stuff that we know is coming up (like we know we will be redoing the roof in the next year or 2 so we are trying to save up for that, but if we need to do it before we save the entire cost, we'd take the cost out of the efund and then replenish after. We also use our efund for any unexpected house/car/big stuff that comes up if we need to because we have more in the efund that we realistically need and have amazing job security for dh's job). Then we have another account that we use for travel and other fun or unnecessary purchases...basically how we make decisions on whether to do stuff is if we have the funds in that account to do so. And finally I have a separate HYS account in my own name that is not tied to dh at all because as a SAHM with no regular income, it was important to me to have some money not tied to him or his name in some way just in case something insane happens, and I have an auto transfer set up for that account each month. There is no real plan for that money, but it's important to me that it's there.

[clairebear]

None. I have a checking account that's our slush fund for all expenses. When we know we have a big expense coming up we just save extra. Otherwise once our bills are paid at the end of the month we sweep everything except $500 into our Vanguard investment account. The caveat being I do have some separate business accounts (I own my own business) that I could tap into in a true emergency. Multiple savings accounts would drive me batty, but I get the appeal of them.

[ellipses84]

1. I used to have 2 and DH had one but then the banks raised their account minimums to not charge a fee and we consolidated.

[brooke77]

DH and I still have mostly separate finances. He has a savings account and I have one with Ally. In my Ally, I have subaccounts/CDs.

[trissie18]

We have three. One is a general easy to access account at the same local bank as our checking that I use to cover overspending, house projects, splurges, etc. (DH's paycheck auto deposits anything over my weekly budgeted income for him into this account). Two are with Discover Bank - one for our efund and one for our vacation fund (I have line items in my monthly budget to deposit money in both accounts). 

[Cappy]

This is why I stick with CapitalOne. We have 6 sub accounts:

Escrow (property taxes/insurance/HOA)
Short term savings (projects/vacations)
Emergency fund
Kids'Savings (ex. when they get birthday money or what not)
PayPal Link
Mercari Link

I use the last 2 subaccounts as a sort of financial firewall for app based services. That way if someone hacks me they only get access to that one account and not my "real" accounts.

[tripleshot]

I have multiple accounts at Capital One. I love that it’s all separated and I have automatic transfers set up bi-weekly or monthly. I tried to do just 1 account and use a spreadsheet to track it but it was a pain. This is easier.

Emergency fund
Escrow
Vacation
Dog medical (saving for dentals and shots)
Life Insurance
Christmas

[melmel48]

A million.

I have one at my local brick and motar bank
1 with Ally
Capitol One is split into:

Vacation
Condo savings
Christmas savings
Running savings (I am a runner but only do races when I have $ in this account)
Professional fees (Every two years but it cost me around $450 so I save for them)
Car fund for repairs, oil changes, registration fees etc.
Gifts
Cats

[Pilsy]

Mentally, I love the idea of separating everything and having funds earmarked for specific plans/needs, but we have never done that as it doesn't really work for my H. We do spread out our savings some, but only to maximize interest. We have investments (standard, 401ks, 529s) beyond these, but the money in the accounts listed below is for cars, car repairs, home repairs and maintenance, vacations, Christmas and other gifts, emergencies, etc.

1. Capital One 360 - We had opened this when the interest rate was the best around and are slowly draining it, as the interest is no longer the best and my login keeps getting screwed up, which is a real PITA.
2. Work credit union with me as primary - I enjoy having a physical location to visit for my checking, which is tied to this account. We also have a few CDs here.
3. Work credit union with H as primary - We each have one, as there is a higher interest rate on the first $15K in the account, and we keep more than $15K in these (i.e., we earn more in interest by spreading out the money).
4. Work credit union with me as primary #2 - "rainy day" account we are required to have in order to get a higher interest rate, so we keep a minimal amount in here
5. Work credit union with H as primary #2 - "rainy day" account

[quesyrah]

A lot.

We bank with capital one and I’m a big fan of sinking funds and it works better for me to have them all separate Vs in one pot and keeping track of how much is for each category. $X from DH’s paycheck get direct deposited every week.

In addition to our e fund I have:


Household/personal
Home maintenance
Auto maintenance
Christmas
Annual expenses
Vacations
Groceries (we put all our groceries on a CC)

This is the best way I kept our budget on track when money was tight and I’ve just kept doing it because it works so well. Li

[twinmomma]

I have 2 checking accounts - one for bills and one for weekly fun money allowance. Plus 6 savings accounts. I like to have them all separated with automatic transfers to each so I don't have to do any mental guessing of what's what. I've got the general emergency savings, summer camp savings, Christmas savings, kid expenses savings for things like extracurriculars, and then just a regular savings account for other stuff.

[ssmjlm]

We have 3:
-one at BOA and is for car ins that I have transferred from our BOA checking
-Two with CAP360, efund/house stuff and car fund

Everything else is invested with our FA.

[mich1]

DH and I have separate accounts. Mine are a single checking account and a single savings account. I also have 2 additional investment accounts outside of my retirement funds. One was where I parked the money from the sale of my dad's house after he died, and the other account is one that I funnel money into when the balance of my saving's account gets too high.

DH has 2 checking accounts at 2 different banks and a single savings account. The rest of his money is investments in a bunch of different accounts. He has consolidated the bulk of his retirement accounts.

[mrsslocombe]

1. Capital 360 is the e-fund
2. A small Wells Fargo one that exist only as overdraft protection for my checking account
3. At Vanguard, we have separate investment accounts with different goals (home reno, etc) that are earmarked for specific times, so they get rebalanced/placed in less risky funds as we approach the deadline, as well as a fund for retirement in addition to our IRAs.

[aspentosh]

Two

1. Truist savings account that holds our annual/bi-annual fees like car insurance, home insurance, property taxes etc. Plus 3 months of expenses.
2. Investment account that holds another 3-6 months of expenses and usually what we're saving for long term.

Right now our "within the next year" purchases are staying in #1.

[mofongo]

Oh gosh, just one. I think I’d lose it with more! There’s a certain amount I like to keep, which is more than an e-fund. It grows over time, and we use credit card for points for big purchases and pay off immediately. Not saving for any home improvement or anything like that, think we’re set for a while. 

We also have an open HELOC. I plan to keep it open, as it’s very quick access to cash. We used that for our backyard kitchen and paid it off fairly fast. It’s nice if you don’t want to see a huge chunk come out of savings.

[mlkgls]

Technically just 3, but my main savings account at my bank has 12 goals/sub-accounts. I loooove sinking funds lol! It makes my financial life so much easier to track and it takes 2 seconds to transfer money for goals. 

[chpmnk1015]

Each kid has one.. then we have 2 but one is a money market and the other just savings.

[farmvillelover]

For non-invested money, it's all at Capital One with several categories that I have auto deposits for monthly:
- summer camps
- insurance premiums I pay annually
- property taxes
- vacations
- holidays
- gifts
- car
- new house (which is where all of our excess cash is going now)

I have a savings account at BofA that is solely for tax payments because I fund it from my business account.

[sent]

One.

We started working with a CFP last year so the rest of my extra money went into investment accounts. Now I'm going to ignore that money and basically treat it like a retirement account since everything is down and I think I have less than what I put in. Whatever, it's probably better if I don't think about it.

[mcsangel2]

We have only one account at a credit union, but it has 8 sub accounts in addition to the checking. One of them is the membership savings account that you have to open in order to even have an account there, but it only has a minimum, where most of the regular/efund savings is in a money market account with a better rate. One was a sub account I added to put the money I inherited left over from my mom's estate, to keep it separate from our joint savings (even though technically it is now both of ours because the account is joint). I have found it really helpful over the years to have these separate accounts for things like vacations and savings for a new car, because I can show H that we really do have x amount available to spend on whatever.

[ohgillian]

I struggled with what you're describing for a long time and finally figured out a spreadsheet method that works for me. I'm happy to try to post a screenshot. Basically I have all my expenses that I'm saving for planned out, and then I put money into the one savings account every month. And as long as the spreadsheet is never in the negative/red, it means I will have enough saved by that year/month for that item. For me, this is working better than trying to manage different accounts for different purposes.