I have always saved. Halloween candy - stored it in a little plastic briefcase and would keep it so long that I would have to throw it out because it was stale. I saved cash from trips – I would eat soup and anything cheap all week long on my zone swimming trips so that I could come home with cash to give back to my mom (my mom would send me with enough cash so I wouldn’t have to do this). Savings accounts – I always put a portion of my pay check into a savings account and found a thrill in watching the numbers rise over time.
I inherited my ways my from family.When I was born my parents started a savings account for me- $100 bucks a month when it started. It has slowly grown over time and I now get to use that money as an adult to make major purchases – like down payments for a house. They started a savings account when I was born that would pay for my college tuition (I chose an instate school). I didn’t have to deal with student loans. The little sacrifice my parents made each month built into something large.
My husband often gives me a hard time, because not everyone has this luxury.
I decided that I want our kids to have that luxury. We don’t even have kids yet, but we have started a started a savings account and dubbed it the kid fund. We started almost a year ago and put in $100 bucks a month. We have since increased our monthly contributions to $250 as we have made more room in the budget. We started the fund before we were married in hopes that it would grow before our family even did. I feel content now knowing that the money I was used to sitting on in my bank account – I literally had to keep it at $5,000 in my checking account- is now going to something besides my comfort. My husband and I have savings accounts for multiple goals: baby, house, vacation, emergency, etc. We start with a bit of seed money and let them build slowly each month. We treat our savings as a bill (one from our future selves) – money gets automatically transferred to the savings accounts each month. They may not build as fast as I wish they would, but the balances go up every single month.
Though I no longer have $5,000 dollars in my checking account (my husband thinks checking balances that large are a waste of earned interest) and it sometimes pains me. I had grown accustomed to not having to worry if I spent $200 bucks at Anthropologie ( I LOVE that store). What I do have is the comfort in my future. The money is sitting in warm nests some place besides my cehcking account and I know that I will be able to offer some of the comfort that I had as a kid to my kids and it is way more awesome than sitting on it for my own good.
Readers: Do you have goal savings accounts for regular expenses? If you do, what categories do you have them for? If not, are you interested in creating some?
Yes, this is the system we use, but we do it for short-term (1 year or less) savings. We don’t have any long-term savings aside from our retirement. Well, I guess we also have our EF and a small nest egg that might go for a car or a baby or something, but most everything is short-term (travel, cars, entertainment, CSA, appearance, medical, electronics, charitable giving).
We don’t separate our savings into separate accounts yet, but we do want to create an account solely for our first child.
This is the exact system we have! We have a kid’s account, a long term savings account, vacation fund, furniture fund + more!