How many "earmark" accounts do you have?

[creditcardfree]

We opened our fifth account today. Apparently there are laws about using a savings account for more than X transactions per month.

Yes there are. I ran into that one month. If you have too many too often they will close your account. This is a federal regulation. Regulation D I believe. This is why I have to have a very basic savings account (non money market) for some of our savings. I don't get the higher interest rate, but at least I have money available without needing to dip into the EF in our money market. It helps for me to keep our money for auto premiums, ect seperate from the checking account.

Personally, I don't really earmark the money. Most of it's emergency funds or money set aside for a future payment. The rest is mimimal savings and available for the need or want as we see necessary. I don't have enough money (or is it patience) to save for 10 things at the same time!

[Homebody]

My daughter has sub accounts at ING for wedding, new car replacement, home repairs and a rainey day fund.

My husband and I have separate savings accounts, but they are just EF.

This is an area I would like to get more organized.

[Bookie]

I use three physical accounts, two local and one on-line.

The local accounts are used for intermittent payments and a small EF. The on-line account is for 'deep savings'. Transfers are automatic to these accounts.

[MonkeyMama]

I am not big on earmarks. Money is so tight we have budgeting and earmarking a little more. But all the same I like simplicity. & flexibility.

I mostly have short-term savings and the emergency fund (in 1 account, I track which is which in excel). For short term savings I take all the bills over $100 or so that pop up less often than once a month - add them all up for the year - and divide by 12. I set that amount aside each month (this is mostly property taxes and insurances). So the money is always there when I need it. Simple.

Then we have the e-fund. Just for anything big and unforeseen.

That's about it. Vacation, christmas, etc. we generally have in the monthly budget (don't spend much on these) and we have a little wiggle room for smaller emergencies and things so we don't have to dig into our savings.

We don't have anything big planned in the near future so we just don't have any other allocations. Even things like cars, we generally buy what we can pay off in a year (whatever that may be at the time) and we have plenty of cash to buy some really used cars if need be. But don't see the point to save much right now - we have 2 newer cars. When we have more money though will probably just pad the e-fund more with newer cars in mind. Mostly it is a judgement call how much we can spare when the time comes - as to our vacations and all that. Not much so we aren't allocating any money to things like that. We get by fine going very used on things and less luxury when our budget gets this tight.

Dh is saving his allowance for a big purchase so I am tracking in excel how much of our savings is for that. Usually we just spend it though. & for the kids, I am tracking their money until they have enough to open a mutual fund. So I have a couple of earmarks I don't usually have and don't intend to keep for the long-term. It all gets tedious.

[Fizgig]

Not including retirement, I have four accounts:

1. Checking for bills and regular expenses. (Actually, I put most everything on AmEx and pay off the card from my checking account. Points/rebates are nice.) My paycheck is automatically deposited and transfers are set up to my three other accounts with each check.

2. Emergency Fund in a high interest online bank.

3. House account for taxes, insurance, and repairs. I pad it generously in case the roof decides to collapse or something.

4. Splurge fund. This is a new thing I started this year after I got my emergency fund fully stocked. I still kick in to the EF, but I now put some of that in my splurge fund. It's for clothes, vacations, gifts, etc. It's really nice to give myself permission to have a little fun with my money.

[nanamom]

We have an ING EF (building and only touched in extreme emergencies) and another ING account that is for short term goals like vacations. I also have an emmigrant direct account that I mostly forget about. It has a very low balance, kind of my allowance savings. I have two local checking accounts. One has automatic payments taken out for life insurance and very little else. I keep it because I need an account where my little one banks and that is the best bank for him. My other is with billpay and we use it the most.

[jmjj215]

We have a few: House downpayment, emergency fund, car replacement, estimated taxes.

But w/in our budget, everything is earmarked. Those above just happen to have their own physical accounts as well.