First of the month – pay all bills that are in hand (water bill isn’t always here). Most are on autodraft and I’m trying to set up the remainder as online banking.

Mid month – pay water bill, auto debits for savings, new car/next house project fund and monthly Roth contribution transfered out to the appropriate accounts automatically.

End of month – extra is swept into savings. I’m trying to get the accrual accounts to the point where they are funded for a rolling calendar year in advance.

E fund is a combination of an ING account linked to the household account and laddered short term CDs at my credit union. These accounts are approaching a year of gross income, so I will probably be adding money to my retirement %; I’m a long way from maxed.

Retirement is 401(k) pretax/not included in the number above.

The money in my ‘personal’ account is eating out, hobbies, entertainment, clothes. If there’s money left in there (over the $100 cushion), it is swept into a linked savings at the end of the month for vacations. My bonus and any ‘found’ money is also deposited into the vacation account. Sometimes I divide this savings account into a vacation fund and ‘want to buy the next cool electronic gadget’ fund.

Interesting to see how different people handle this, but the one thing I see in common is to make the process as ‘idiot proof’ as possible. Long gone are the days when I never knew when a bill was due!!!