Why you need multiple savings accounts

We have a number of saving accounts. While some people are quite happy with having just one savings account, I like having a number of them for all our needs. To me, it just makes your saving goals clear and defined.

We used to do things quite differently until we worked out our current approach. It felt like every month we`d have a money emergency – annual property tax bill would come in or we had to pay our car insurance. This would cause unnecessary stress and would make the budgeting process virtually impossible. We realized it wasn't the case of not having enough money for these expenses, but it was the case of very bad cash flow and timing. The solution? Saving money throughout the year for all big expenses over $200.

 

Investment account

Or what I call “Paying Ourselves First” account. This is where we transfer a set percentage of our income from every paycheck and save it to be later invested.

Emergency fund

This is our rainy day fund – anytime we have an emergency, we have access to our own safety net as opposed to borrowing money or using credit cards. I already covered the importance of having an emergency fund a while ago (http://moneyramblings.com/emergency-fund/) . Last time our dryer broke down, the money came from our emergency fund without breaking the bank or our monthly budget. Think about starting one as soon as you can.

Gifts

My wife is one of the kindest and giving women I’ve ever met. She loves giving presents – and she gives a lot of thought to presents. Her brain has a built-in calendar for birthday dates of anybody we’ve ever met. I on the other hand have a terrible memory and can never pick anything meaningful – partly because I’m a practical kind of a guy. To make sure gifts and presents never throw our budgets out of whack (how it used to happen right before Christmas), we’ve figured out a monthly figure we contribute toward gifts. It accumulates there month after month, and my wife can spend it anytime she needs.

New Car account

Our car is closing on 20 years – but it is in excellent shape and has fairly low mileage of just over 200K. There’s not a single thing wrong with it, and for its age it looks absolutely fabulous. Honestly, it will be hard for me to say goodbye to our Donkey (that’s what we call it between ourselves). But you never know what happens, and there might be a day when the engine completely gives or it gets stolen. Just in case, we’ve been saving money for a new car – if the need for a new car arises. By now it’s almost fully funded, so we can just write a cheque and buy a new car – but for now we’re perfectly happy with our Donkey.

Annual property taxes

We own our condo, and one of the pleasures home ownership comes with is the annual tax bill. Thankfully, our condo is quite affordable when it comes to taxes and we just have to save around $90/month. Once a month we transfer $90 into Annual Property Tax account and come July pay our taxes. Easy, peasy, nice and breezy.

Annual car insurance and condo insurance

These are pretty self-explanatory – and while the amount of money we spend on condo insurance is fairly low and it feels a bit silly to save throughout the year for it, I still do it out of habit.

 

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This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.