The 'What's the best bank for piggybanking /jam-jar accounts?' Great Hunt

work_to_live

i get my wages put into a nationwide account which gives me free travel insurance.when im paid i transfer all of my wages to halifax where i have a reward account to get the £5 monthly reward and i have all my direct debits/bills/rent coming out of. i have a current account which is just used for what i can spend in the month on food,entertainment etc. then i have a web saver where i save monthly for oil heating. i also have an isa anda everyday saver with halifax which im using until the new tax year starts when i can use my isa again. i use my clarity reward credit card for general spending to get £5 back per month if i spend 300 or more and just transfer the money from my current account as i spend so its always paid off in full.this is all easily done through halifax online banking. with them you can up to 5 web savers online to separate out your money

GingerFurball_2

Ravenshade wrote: »

It's not necessarily which accounts it's which has the best usability. In which case it comes down to which provider. LloydsBank has a great intuitive internet banking system that I heartily approve of.... and since Lloyds keep forgetting to delete the old accounts while setting up new higher interest accounts for me I can split my money almost endlessly. That said if you're like me and when your money comes in the first thing you do is pay off all your bills for the month ahead... then the endless splitting doesn't work so well. In fact nowadays I tend to use the extra accounts simply to allocate to different budgets. Rather useful.

Yeah, I do this as well.

I don't have up to date, valid ID either so opening new accounts with new banks is a hassle, so I just open accounts online with the Bank of Scotland. I've got my current account, a regular saver to save up for my Christmas spending, an account where I've got the Save the Change bolt on activated to, as well as dumping spare change and other bits and bobs (eg unbudgeted work income like overtime or bonus payments), and my ISA which is my main savings for a deposit - although I'm suspending paying into that until I pay off my credit card and Co-Op overdraft.

IDProtected

I can't recommend Sainsburys internet savings account highly enough. You will have to keep your own spreadsheet/worksheet with your columns for each category you save for, but you can pay your bills out directly from the account rather than having to withdraw it out first. For example, I use a cashback credit card for shopping, transfer the cash to Sainsburys each time I shop, and when the bill is due, I pay the credit card company directly from my Sainsburys account. The interest rate is not too shabby either!

molerat

The good thing about only using one account is that, if absolutely necessary, you can take one pot into negative temporarily without having to panic and move money around and it will naturally sort itself out.

As for using cash !! All my spending is done between a 4% and a 1% cash back credit card and the cash is earning 2.7% net whilst waiting to pay the bill.

strangel

Im with Barclays and I have 2 current accounts, 1 for bills that come out by direct debit and 1 for paying my credit card off. I have a Barclaycard Reward credit card that I pay off as soon as Iv spent on it and get points back on that (I buy everything on it) and I have an ISA for savings for things I might want for my house and 7 separate savings accounts for things like xmas, birthdays, my bus fares each month, insurance, money I save for my son, money for extras each month and if my gas and electric goes down when this is assessed yearly I put the extra away each month as well.
All paid by standing order and updated each payday on a spreadsheet.

ameesha

I have 6 different accounts with Natwest:
Bills current account (direct debits mainly)
Spending (food, petrol, changeable amounts)
One-offs (once a year things like road tax, car insurance)
ISA (main savings)
Savings account (emergency pot)
Business banking.

They all copy easily into a spreadsheet so I can keep a track of them. I find it much easier to manage my money this way, especially as I only allocate a certain amount to my Spending account so I don't overspend.

I only have two issues with Natwest - 1) business banking got bought out by Santander so I see my business account on the same internet banking screen, I have to login through a different server to see almost the same screen. Very frustrating.

2) Natwest have stopped issuing debit cards for second accounts. They couldn't see why I was annoyed about this as I obviously use the card for my purchases (Spending account). When my card expires, I'm going to have to change to a bank who provides cards for each account.

EvaCustard

I'm a total bank account tart

Salary is paid into Barclays account - I keep it as I have a £1k interest free overdraft on it.

I transfer all the bill money to a Sandander 123 account for Cashback

And I also transfer (in & mostly out) £750 to a Halifax £5 reward saver account thing - 2 small DD's there too and my car park money for the month.

Free money from the banks

Barclays lets you have various accounts too - so I have several pots on there for different things - it works for me.

Oh & I'm a complusive spreadsheeter ...... everything is documented.

piggielady

I have an internet current account with LLoyds and have lots of 'envelopes' linked to that account - I think you can have as many as you like.

I name them - Car Tax, Christmas etc and I even have one called Credit Card Money so if I buy something on my credit card I rush home and transfer the money from the current account to Credit Card Money so it's there when the bill comes in!

All the envelope accounts show up on the screen at the same time so it's lovely to see how much money I have - even if it is accounted for.

BTW my mum used to have a green oblong tin with slots in the top and little compartments inside for her budgetting - she's probably still got it as old habits die hard!

Aynty_Mary

I have 3 accounts. My main one at the Halifax has my pensions paid in.
I have 1 monthly standing order from it to a 2nd Halifax account for all my annual out goings, car tax, house insurance, etc. it's fairly simple to work out your annual spending and divide by 12.


I have a 2nd monthly standing order to Santander for all my utilities to get the cash back + keep savings there if I can for the 3%
It's not complicated.
What is left in my main account is mine to use knowing my bills are all sorted.

Biggles

piggielady wrote: »

I have an internet current account with LLoyds and have lots of 'envelopes' linked to that account - I think you can have as many as you like.

I name them - Car Tax, Christmas etc and I even have one called Credit Card Money so if I buy something on my credit card I rush home and transfer the money from the current account to Credit Card Money so it's there when the bill comes in!

I've had online access to my Lloyds account for years and never seen any 'envelopes'. What difference does it make if a DD comes in; if there's only one bank account, it comes out of the bank account, doesn't it?