How many checking/savings accounts does your household have?

[iNTeNSeBLue98]

I ask because I'm going to open a new checking account today, at a new bank. Doing so will bring me to 3 checking accounts and 4 savings accounts.

We have a joint checking account and I have an individual checking (for ebay, rewards) at a local bank. Both are basic, no frills accounts with no fees, no minimums. I have most of my direct deposit sent to the joint account each week and a small percentage is deposited to my individual account. I make a cash deposit from DH pay to the joint account as needed to cover the bills.

We have a savings account at a credit union. I have an amount automatically deducted from my pay each week and DH visits the branch each week to deposit a set amount since the CU branch is more convenient to his workplace than the bank where our checking account is. The account was set up to deduct our auto loan payment. We deposit more than the payment amount, and since refinancing a couple of months ago, more money is being saved.

Each week I have funds transfered from the two checking accounts to three separate ING Direct Orange savings accounts, one for each member of the family. It's a good thing that it takes a few days to complete a transaction - it's deters transfers out of the account. I do occasionally pull from one or two of the accounts, but only when it's a necessity.

Today I'm going to open a new checking account at a bank that is offering 5% interest for it's checking accounts. The 5% offer is good until the end of the year, but there is a good chance that it will be around longer according to the branch manager. The bank is convenient to my PT job, an area that I only pass through to commute to the PT job on weekends. I don't plan for this money in our household budget, so I will change the direct deposit for the PT job from our joint account.

I know it might be silly that I'm not moving all of our accounts over to the interest-bearing account, but the free account is linked to all of our bills and is convenient to my workplace and not far from home, with more branches in the area. We really don't keep extra money in there - except the weekly amounts that I deduct for rent, but sometimes I leave the cash at home and make one lump deposit to cover it.

DH is trying to get a PT job so he can splurge on things that don't quite fit in the regular household budget. He wants to open his own individual checking account for that income at a bank (or the CU) convenient to his regular job.

Do we have too many accounts, or do you think it's wise to have everything spread around?

 

[aka-mad4themouse]

DH has a business checking account. I have one for personal use. We each have a savings account, as do the 2 kids. I'd get a headache trying to keep track of more accounts.

But we also have most of our money tied up in other ways. KEOGH, IRAs, Mutual Funds, Money Markets, some stocks, 529 accounts for the kids and DH invests in the futures market.

 

[eliza61]

I don't think it's too much if you can keep track of them. Let see, we have 1 joint account. Then my DH and I each have individual checking accounts and my sons (2)each have savings accounts. We also have a local saving account, that we use for mad money (just keep a couple of hundred, I hate using the ATM because of the fees) since our main accounts are with our job's credit union. So we have quite a few too.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Too many

We have a local joint account (free--for depositing cash or for simple bank services).

We have our accts with USAA....

Joint (bills)
Joint (household)
hubby personal
Me personal

So we have 5 accts. It works for us. We are a "can't have all the money in one pot family" as it makes it difficult to track things. This method keeps us out of hot water.

 

[raammartin]

We have one checking for bills, household, etc. and 5 savings accounts. I couldn't keep up with more than one checking I don't think.

 

[Cheshire Figment]

I have two checking accounts and two savings accounts.

One checking has two direct deposits (Red Cross pension and survivor benefits from Judy's pension) and is used for automatic withdrawls (Mortgage, Homeowner's Association, LTC Insurance premiums and Disney automatic stock purchase).

The other checking account has three direct deposits (Federal pension, Social Security, and Disney [part time] payroll). It is used for everything else.

I have a very small savings account which is used only for connection to PayPal. I transfer money from PP to that account, and then sweep it into main savings.

Main Savings Account is a money market account.

I also have my mortgage, HELOC, and small ($5,000) general line of credit which also includes overdraft protection from the main checking account.

 

[staceyfe]

1 joint checking account.
1 joint savings account
1 savings account for DS10.

I transfer $$ monthly that's for bills paid annually (1/12th of the amount) into the savings account (actually, it's a money market) to get the interest. Then when the bill is due, I transfer it back to checking. I keep track of how much money is for what bill in a check register.

 

[disneysteve]

We have:

1 joint checking account
1 money market fund with check-writing privileges
1 online money market account, no check-writing

Everything else is invested. No other checking or savings accounts.

 

[Gillian]

We used to have 5:
joint checking
joint "spending" (direct deposit from work with 1 weekly ATM withdrawal)
personal checking me
personal checking DH
joint ING saving

now we also have small savings for both kids and a money market fund although we don't usually write checks from that.

we have other investment accounts, and it does get a bit tricky to keep track of it all. I gave up that job to DH a while ago in exchange for doing the laundry. Not sure it was a good trade.

 

[cruisnfamily]

We have:

1 checking account. It's joint, all monies go through this account.


We do however have a multitude of savings. We fund all of these out of every paycheck(except the kids savings~We fund their mutual funds not these littel savings accounts)
DS10 savings
DD13 savings
Joint savings...kind of a slush fund, no real purpose, just to keep extra funds out of checking
Escrow savings....for homeowners insurance and property taxes
Medical savings...for health ins premiums and extra funds for meeting all copays and deductibles.
Extra Savings....this one is at ING and started out as a DCL fund and now I'm using it to fund "extras" like DD's 8th grade trip and summer camp and stuff.

 

[NCRedding]

We have one joint checking account. I write all the checks, and pay bills. DH takes money out at the first of the week to last him all week.

We have one money market account which is our "freedom account" if you follow Mary Hunt. This has all our vacation money, real property tax money, money for gifts, clothing, car repairs, insurance premums and deductibles, etc. It also has our emergency fund balance in it. There are no limits to the amount of transfers or withdrawals from this account. It is at a credit union so we get a decent amount of interest for it.

We have a money market account with this credit union which is where we deposit a set amount for income taxes since we are self-employed, and pay quarterly.

We have a small savings account here because you have to maintain a savings account of at least $25 to remain at the credit union.

I have a very small IRA, only because I left a job and had no other place to put my retirement from there, as we hadn't set up our simple IRA yet.

At the office, we have a firm checking account, and two trust accounts for our client's money.

 

[Dznypal]

3 account but Mon Im opening up another one

whenever I get an offer for if you open up a free checking or savings and they give you usually its $25 but once I got one for $50

you have to keep it in the bank for 6 months but then I close it and put the money back in my regular account this has been our vacation money

other then these we have a joint checking, savings and each of us has a retirement so right now were up to 5 accounts

I just love spending the wealth around