I’d like to start multiple “fake” accounts so that I can instantly mark money as reserved for a future expense. So if my “house maintenance” account has enough money in it, I can start my next home repair project. Or if my “entertainment” account has enough, I can go out and buy that shiny new road bike.
In other words, I’d like to treat my savings account as multiple accounts. Then each account would receive a certain percentage each month.
It’s sort of like a pro-active budget, but I need a way of saying I have $x set aside for goal y at any point in time. Most budgets (that I’ve seen) only tell you there are $x remaining this month/year for goal y.
I’d like to a number of categories, so I don’t think opening a new savings account for each would be very practical.
Any ideas? What are you all doing for things like this? Do any banks offer something like this? Any software?
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Try opening a savings account in ingdirect.com. You can have multiple ‘sub’ accounts and name them for the specific projects/expenses. You can also set up automatic deposit to each of your accounts. It has worked extremely well for me.
I agree with the first answerer. I have an ING account with 3 sub-accounts for specific goals. Every pay period, each of these accounts gets a certain amount of money. Best wishes.