slo’s FRIDAY 9/12 poll - Checking Accounts

[loves to dive]

2 both personal. One I've had for about 44 years, the bank has been bought out at least 3 times.

One I opened when I had to take over managing my parents accounts. I had always had a savings account in the same bank they used but I found I needed to transfer money into their account to pay their bills. After Mama had to go to a nursing home, I needed to move her money around so I opened a checking account to just put her money in and pay her bills from. After she died I just kept it. I use it when I need to pay something using my savings account funds, I can just transfer money between the savings and checking since it's in the same bank. I have checks for it but usually just do on line bill pay from it. The only time I write a check on it is if I'm giving my son a large amount of money that I need to transfer from my savings (like helping him with his down payment for his house).

I rarely write checks on my main account, only when I'm moving money out of it into savings. I pay all my bills on line and charge practically everything to my credit card since it's cash back and just pay it off every month.

 

[mamamary]

Only one, joint with DH. We only write a handful of checks each month and pay most bills online.

Sounds like us.

 

[CdnCarrie]

One joint chequing and one joint savings. Haven't written and cheque in years so bit of a misnomer.

 

[georgina]

Just one joint checking with DH. Never had a need for another, but I have occasionally opened one temporarily for a bank bonus then closed it.

I write less than one check a month, everything else done electronically.

I do have a separate online savings account since the checking doesn't pay much interest.

 

[goofyernmost]

I have one account and I can't even remember when the last time was I wrote a check. I use it for my cash account and pay my bills through it via on-line payments or debit card. I just looked it up and the last check I wrote was Nov. 2021 to a charity. The account does pay interest (not much) on the average balance.

 

[Colleen27]

Three, but one is temporary and will be closed after everything is settled with my mother's estate. That one is only in my name (now - it was joint with my mother). The other two are joint with DH, one at the local bank that's actually convenient to our house that we use for 95% of everything and the other at the same national bank where we set up an account for DD20 when she went away to school. That way, we can send her money as needed in real time without thinking about transaction limits in instant-transfer apps like Zelle or Venmo.

 

[CGB]

We have two checking accounts. DH's original account in his hometown bank (in a different state) and a local bank where we now live. Both are joint accounts. His income has always went to his bank and my income goes to our local bank account. That setup worked well for us while he was active-duty and we moved from place to place. Once we settled, we just kept it. As far as checks go, we may have written 2-3 checks this year total. All bills are paid electronically. We also don't use our debit cards; we use credit cards for points and pay everything off each month.

I'm also on my kids' bank accounts as an authorized user if they ever need my assistance.

 

[KPeterso]

2 accounts of my own (at 2 different banks). And then I am on both of my parents' accounts too. Only child so just made sense as they get older that I had full access to all of their accounts just in case. The only reason I have 2 (and actually same for them) is that when we moved to where we live now, our bank at the time was not in the area, but we felt strongly it would have a presence in the area within a few years (and it did), so we opened something locally that we still have, but kept the original accounts too.

 

[disneychrista]

I have two. I opened a second one when I used to do eBay/PayPal. I didn’t want them to have access to my main account. Now I use it as an intermediary between my B&M bank and my online savings accounts. I transfer money to it, to transfer to savings.

I don’t remember the last time I actually wrote a check. I have a box & a half of Mickey Mouse checks with the address where I lived 13 plus years ago.

 

[ford family]

We have three, all joint accounts.

One in the UK in GBP
One in the US in USD
One in Spain in Euro

Have cheque books for the UK and US accounts but very rarely use them. I wrote a GBP cheque last year for an equity rights issue and the UK bank phoned me to make sure it was genuine!

ford family

 

[design_mom]

Two. Before we were married (26+ years ago) we each had accounts at different banks. When we got married, we kept the accounts, but added the spouse as joint. So now we have two. He generally pays the monthly bills out of his and mine is for the less recurring things. Like vacations, the kids' college expenses, car repairs, etc.

 

[fla4fun]

Technically I have three. One is a joint account with my sister for expenses on the home we inherited from our parents. We use it for taxes, insurance, repairs, etc. Then I have one which is a regular checking in my name and another is a money market that I can write limited checks on, but I use it primarily as a savings account.

 

[LoveSpringsteen]

My husband and I have 3 joint checking accounts at 3 separate banks. One is with our mortgage company and we use it to pay our mortage and real estate taxes. One is at our credit union which is for large expenses and one is our main checking account which is used for our monthly bills. None of them charge any fees for maintaining the accounts. This set up works well for us.

We also have a savings account at our credit union. I'm also joint owner on my kids' checking (and savings) accounts, but I'm not counting them.

 

[MillauFr]

Just one at Fidelity. I like to simplify. Less is more.

 

[tzolkin]

Have always just had one checking account until a few months ago when I opened one for a rental property that we had purchased (but for daily/family life I would still consider myself to just have one checking account).

I have never felt any need or desire to have multiple checking accounts. It's easiest for me to do all of our bill paying from one account. We use credit cards (not debit) for nearly all our purchases, so if I really wanted to separate out our spending I would just use different cards for different categories.

Until a couple years ago we also only had one savings account. We now have one higher yield savings account for our emergency fund and one that is specifically earmarked for travel.

One! I use YNAB (You Need a Budget) to separate what all of our money is designated for, vs. opening different accounts.

We use YNAB too instead of having multiple accounts. I find that much easier to separate things out because you can have as many categories as you want and you can easily rearrange how the money is allocated as often as you like.

 

[John VN]

How many checking accounts do you have? ....................................

Thinking 2 but only because DW hasn't updated me on our finances lately. In our 49 years of marriage I believe I've only signed 2 checks. One was last month for the registration of a car she wanted me to get and I really can't recall what the other one was for.

 

[easyas123]

Thinking 2 but only because DW hasn't updated me on our finances lately. In our 49 years of marriage I believe I've only signed 2 checks. One was last month for the registration of a car she wanted me to get and I really can't recall what the other one was for.

We have a joke in our house that the IRS, mortgage company or bank wouldn't recognize my husbands signature if he actually had to sign a check or document for real!

 

[tvguy]

Well, 2 but a 3rd used to be a checking account. My bank got sold, and I had a Money Market Checking Account that is just a regular account now I think because the new bank didn't offer anything similar....a checking account that paid Money Market rates if you kept a minimum balance.
My wife and I have a checking account, and our second checking account is one we share with our daughter. Setup when she was in College so we could easily transfer money over to her online. We've kept it because over the course of the year there are times when we make a purchase for her and she transfers money over to pay us back, and we do the same.

 

[BlueStarryHat]

Just the one, an account for the direct deposit of my SSI checks.

 

[KPeterso]

We have a joke in our house that the IRS, mortgage company or bank wouldn't recognize my husbands signature if he actually had to sign a check or document for real!

My mom has gotten calls a few times over the years from the bank questioning checks signed by my Dad. They were so few and far between that the bank always verified with her if they were real.