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I have 16 personal savings accounts, 3 personal checking accounts, 2 business checking accounts, and 2 business savings accounts. That’s 23 traditional bank accounts, spread across 3 banks. Just talking about that gives my wife a headache.
Every account has a reason. Three of the savings accounts exist just to make the matching checking accounts free. One of the checking accounts handles all of my regular spending that isn’t put on my rewards card. 14 of the savings accounts are INGDirect accounts that have specific goals attached. A couple of the accounts were opened to boost the sales numbers for a friend who is a banker. Really, it’s almost too much to keep track of. One credit card, 5 checking accounts, 18 savings account, all on 4 websites.
Sometimes, when you extend your bank accounts this far, it gets easy to let it all slip away and lose track of where your money is going. How do I keep track of it all?
1. Simplify
Whoa, you say? Simplify? I don’t simplify the number of accounts I have, I simplify the tracking, or specifically, the need to track.
Twice a month, I have an automated transfer that moves a chunk of money from my main checking account to ING. I have a series of transfers set up there that move that money around to each of my savings goals. I move $100 to the vacation account, $75 to the braces account, and $10 to the college fund, among all of the other transfers. Doing that eliminates any need to keep track of the transfers, since it is all automated.
Using the same rules, I make every possible payment happen automatically, so I don’t have to worry about paying the gas bill or sending a check to the insurance company.
Simple.
2. Complicate
As you saw in the opening sentence of this post, I also complicate the hell out of my accounts. On the surface, it would seem like that would make it harder to keep track, but in reality, the opposite is true. I have 14 savings accounts at ING, each for a specific savings goal, like paying my property taxes or going to the to Financial Blogger Conference in October. I can log in to my account and tell at a glance exactly how much money I have for each of my goals. In the account nickname, I include how much each goal is for, so I can easily see if I am on track.
3. Quicken
Everything I do gets set up in Quicken. This makes it easy to track how much actual money I have available. Since I’ve moved my daily expenses to a credit card, I only have about a dozen entries to worry about when I balance my checkbook at the end of the month. At that time, any excess funds get dropped into my debt snowball.
This may all leave me with a needlessly complicated system, but it’s a system that grew slowly to meet my needs and it is working well for me. I spend about 2 hours a month tracking my finances, and can-at any time-tell at a glance exactly how my finances look.
How do you keep your finance organized? Have you tried any unique savings strategies?
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We are also Quicken fans. We use it for everything, every last penny. What I like most about it is the reports and being able to view things by categories. It’s only down fall is it is not portable when you travel.
Miss T recently posted..The ABC’s of Debt Reduction
I use it for everything. I’ve got every account set to auto-sync except my main checking account. I prefer to do that one manually, so I can see what’s pending and what’s cleared. It gives me a better picture.
I keep it on my laptop, so it’s portable. I wish there was an online service that worked just like Quicken.
My wife and I do the following to keep our finances organized:
1. Update regularly. This allows us to see exactly where we are in our budget and how much we have left in each category. When we were in debt, we used to update our records daily because things were much tighter. Now that we are out of debt, we’ve relaxed a little and are now updating two to three times per week.
2. We keep all our receipts and submit them for processing daily. This gets them out of our pockets and puts them in front of the computer so that we remember to enter them into YNAB.
3. We maintain one checking and one savings account (both at the same bank) and only use one of our credit cards. This makes keeping track of things much easier. The way we get away with not having 14 different savings accounts is we setup several sub-categories under the “savings” master category in YNAB. The sum total of all these sub-categories equals what we have in our savings account at the bank.
4. We establish our money goals and review our monthly results together as husband and wife. This helps us be on the same page and helps to keep the lines of communication open.
Cheers,
Thomas
1. I’m still in debt, but since I’ve paid off enough to have some breathing room, I’ve relaxed how closely I watch my finances. I balance my checkbook 1-2 times per month and don’t usually check balances more than weekly.
3. I used to have a bunch of “buckets” in Quicken, but decided it was easier to use ING’s subaccounts.
4. I’m jealous. My wife doesn’t want more than a general idea of where we are. Financial details are my department.
At one time, I was meticulously organized to the point of micromanaging. However, in recent years, I’ve stepped back to being simply organized enough.
That said, with it being easier to open multiple accounts so easily these days, I’ve been thinking about doing something along the lines of what you’re doing with ING for different savings goals. To me, it’s a way for money to be apportioned for specific purposes in a clean way, which also allows for more clarity in spending and understanding of funds.
Good post.
Squirrelers recently posted..The “Right Thing to Do” – Plus Updates- Top Referrers
Thanks.
Lately, I’ve been relaxing my control, too. I don’t need to know where every cent it, every day. I just try to reconcile it all at the end of the month, and maybe the middle of the month if I’ve got some extra energy.
I tend to keep it simple, one checking account, and I only use 3 credit cards. My approach to finance is to automate as much as possible, so I do not have to think about it. I have a payroll deduction for my 403B, IRA and Roth IRA. I set up automatic checks for mortgage, insurance and certain other expenses. We live on what is left.
krantcents recently posted..Is Networking Over for Job Seekers
I’ve consolidated many of our investment accounts to simplify. We use quicken as well, but I don’t like auto bill pay. I manually/electronically pay the bills through my bank to maintain awareness of each payment.
Barb Friedberg recently posted..Don’t Fall for Money Mind Tricks Part 2
I’ve automated almost all of my payments, but the ones that get taken out of my checking account are automated through the bank, so I still have full, hassle-free control.