In a few minutes, I’m going to head to the bank to deposit my wife’s paycheck. It’s really, really cold outside, so I’ve been clicking through all of our accounts, checking balances and transferring funds. I thought it might be interesting to take a quick look at all of our accounts –
Personal Accounts –
Checking –
Primary Checking Account – We use this account to pay bills. All paychecks are deposited into this account.
Interest Bearing Checking Account – We use this account to purchase gas and groceries (via debit card).
Savings –
Online Savings Account – We use this account for our non-retirement savings (emergency fund) and a place to keep money that we need for annual bills or future investment deposits.
Brokerage –
Non-Retirement Brokerage Account – We use this account to purchase individual stocks.
Retirement –
Roth IRA #1 – This is my Roth IRA – I use this account to purchase stocks and ETFs.
Roth IRA #2 – This is my wife’s Roth IRA – She uses this account to purchase stocks and ETFs.
403b – This is my primary retirement account, funded with pretax dollars.
Pension – My wife is an educator and she makes monthly, pretax contributions to her pension plan
Education –
ESA #1 – This is my daughter’s Education Savings Account. We use this account to purchase ETFs.
ESA #2 – This is my son’s Education Savings Account. We use this account to purchase ETFs.
Business Accounts –
Business Checking – I use this account to deposit any income that I make from blogging or eBay.
Business Savings – Once a month, I transfer the balance from Business Checking to Business Savings
Paypal – I have a Paypal account, used for eBay transactions.
As you can see, we have a lot of accounts to manage – but each of these accounts serves its purpose. Once the new baby is born, I’ll be opening up a new ESA, and if things go well in 2008, I might open up a SEP IRA for business income.
How many accounts do you have? More/less? Leave a comment and let us know.
Counting Paypal, I have 13 different accounts.
We probably have ten or eleven accounts, but some are practically dormant (kept for relationships, primarily, with a credit union or two). I’m always threatening to consolidate, but like you I enjoy having things separated for each purpose.
Hmmm. 1 checking, 1 saving, 2 IRAs (one trad, one ROTH), 1 401K, 1 403b, 1 CD, 1 Kiva account, 1 Prosper account, 1 paypal account, 1 discount brokerage account. Those are the ones I keep track of. I know there are additional IRAs and trading accounts with my name on them out there. And of course, 4 credit cards in use/with balances (plus additional ones lying empty/unused).
I’ve got a checking and a savings account at a local brick and mortar bank. I have two online savings accounts, one for long term savings, one for my day-to-day expenses (I charge on a credit card, then pay it off each month). I have a high yield checking account that I use to pay the credit card bill, but it usually sits nearly empty. Sure, I only make a few extra dollars by transfering from the savings to the checking prior to paying the cc bill, but at this point, the step is simple enough that it’s worth it to me. I just opened another high yield savings account at another online bank, mostly to try out their features.
I have a Roth IRA, and I have a brokerage account that has an attached money market containing my emergency fund (as well as stocks, mutual funds, and cds).
I have a checking and savings account at a bank in my parents’ hometown as well, and I’m considering closing one or the other of those two accounts. It’s nice to have easy access to cash while I’m there, as my bank doesn’t have a branch, but I have to keep a minimum of $450 there, just to keep the accounts open. I feel like I could be using that money elsewhere.
I’m surprised that you’re always driving to the bank to deposit money. Don’t you have direct deposit? I’m not trying to be snarky, it just strikes me as odd in this day and age.
Peachy… We live in a very small town, w/ only one bank. Neither of our employers offer direct deposit.
NCN
I do not even want to count all of our accounts. We farm and my DH drives truck, so we have checking and savings for each of them. Plus a checking for personal, and several savings for personal. I just opened another checking for our HSA. Oh yeah, my brother and i have a checking and savings together for our farm account. So I guess that would make 5 checking accounts that i keep track of. With the kids’ savings accounts i think we are at 9. I am not even thinking about anything else that we have.