Poll: How many bank accounts do you have?

[liziz]

We have a million (or so). Joint Checking (we use this mostly for paying of the CCs, which we use for every day expenses as much as possible (cash back!)), we each have our own "play money" checking, and savings (although mine typically has next to nothing in it), and then we have specific savings accounts: our house fund, emergency fund, vacation, savings for small unexpected/irregular stuff (Car repairs, large gifts, etc.), and one for big purchases.

[toratoratori]

One joint checking, one joint savings.

[kendraj426]

Feb 5, 2015 12:05:55 GMT -5 jlaok said:

Feb 5, 2015 11:17:02 GMT -5 kendraj426 said:

We each have a checking and a savings, and we have 2 joint checking. The reason we have 2 is because we had to have a checking act with the bank where we have our mortgage, and the money gets automatically withdrawn for the payments each month. Our other checking is with a Credit Union. We prefer to work with a CU, and we have our car loan through them, so it makes it easier to make the payments.

We also each have a credit card, and we have 4 store credit cards. We use them to get the rewards and pay them off every month.

This of course doesn't include any of our brokerage or retirement accounts.

jlaok - we use a website called Mint to keep everything organized (they also have an app if you prefer to use your phone). You give them all of our login info for your online bank accounts, and it keeps track of everything. It also has a way to set a budget and goals for future expenses (college, wedding, vacation, etc) which can be tied to a specific account so you can track how much you have saved. DH and I have a joint account on there where we can view everything. We pretty much see eye to eye on how we want to spend our money, so this is a great way for us to stay on target.

I know about Mint but I prefer to use an excel spreadsheet.  One reason being that DH is bad about spending and spends less if he has cash (mostly because he can't spend when he's out of cash).  Secondly, Mint can't differentiate between all purchases.  For example, we look at a $100 grocery trip to Target differently than a $100 clothing trip to Target.  Lastly, I'm very Type-A and must control all things.

What I do in Mint is tag things based on what we spent the money on. So, I label groceries and clothing separately. And if it's a purchase of multiple types of things (like when I shop at Target), I go in and split the purchase and tag each portion of it separately. That way we know exactly how much we spent on groceries, baby stuff (diapers, wipes, etc), groceries, and miscellaneous stuff. It's a bit tedious to have to go in and change stuff around after every shopping trip, but since there are few stores that get split, it's not a big deal and doesn't take too much time.

I completely understand the need to control all things - I frequently get that mysefl! DH and I find this to be the easiest option though since we can both see and use it.

[CoverGirl82]

We have 3, all with the same credit union: one checking, one regular savings, and one money market. The only reason we have the money market is because it earns a higher interest rate, but we can move money in and out of it like a regular savings account. We are using the regular savings to start building up money toward another money market or CD for retirement savings. I find that we are moving money back and forth between the checking and money market a lot, but that's mostly because I can't seem to stick to a budget when it comes to clothes and shoes for me and the kids, lol.

[RiseAndWine]

I don't see the poll on mobile but we have 7. It is too many but we're lazy. We have joint checking which is our primary. We each have a personal checking and we have a joint savings all with one bank. Then we have a credit union savings and each have a personal checking with that because its mandatory.

[sunbutter]

Feb 5, 2015 8:09:13 GMT -5 dashofreality said:

Well I said one, but maybe that was wrong. We have a checking and savings account, which I guess is two but they seem to almost be a package deal. I have separate accounts for 401k/IRAs etc but I don't draw from them and don't factor it into my budgeting.

This is us too. Just reading about everyone's dozens of accounts is giving me heartburn.

[mae0111]

Just bank accounts? Two checking, a savings, and an escrow for our rental.

We also have a credit union savings account that we were required to open in order to get a home equity loan.

I didn't count the multiple brokerage, 529, HSA Investment acct, etc...

[tas1883]

I said 2-3 because that is how many different account numbers I have to remember. We have savings, checking, money market all under one account number and then I have a separate account number for my HSA but these are all with the same credit union. DH has all his investment and IRA's with one company that has an option for a money market if you keep 10K as an opening balance and we don't have that much extra. I have my investments spread out between two companies.

[librarychica]

Feb 5, 2015 8:09:13 GMT -5 dashofreality said:

Well I said one, but maybe that was wrong. We have a checking and savings account, which I guess is two but they seem to almost be a package deal. I have separate accounts for 401k/IRAs etc but I don't draw from them and don't factor it into my budgeting.

This.

[twinmomma]

For those stressed about so many accounts... ours all automatically "take care of themselves." I get paid monthly, so my check direct deposits, and our set amounts auto transfer each month to the spending money account and two savings accounts. There's not a lot of active management that happens since we have a set budget and stick to it. We treat savings accounts just like bills we have to pay first.

[momofcatan]

For day to day: one joint chequing, one joint savings. We still have DH's old chequing that just sits there.

We also have all the alphabet soup: TFSA, RRSP, RESP and within those are variouse GICs, index funds, mutual finds... But those are retirement, college fund and emergency fund. And DD also has a savings account and some GICs. I'm lucky to keep everything at one bank and have a good selection of products.