Cheery's path to fulfilment - finishing the DIY, looking after myself, appreciating the garden 🌻

Cheery_Daff

Really useful to have a non-YNAB perspective EH 😂 so thank you. I wonder whether having used it for more than 10 years (I think) I've got quite bogged down in detail and needing to know everything. 

I've enjoyed the simplicity this month. I've had a page in a physical book for each of the pots above, and the other longer term pots/annual bills etc have sections too.

I suppose the thing I'm missing is somewhere that says 'I've got this much money overall, where is it all allocated to?' And that might be solved by having pots in separate bank accounts I suppose.

I suppose I have half an eye on trying to keep things simple in case anything happens to me and Mr C needs to take over. I don't expect an imminent demise (!) But it is something that really plays on my mind, I'm really wary of having too many different accounts, for example. He's perfectly capable, but it would be unnecessarily stressful. The answer might be several joint accounts with the same bank, so we can both see them when logged in, for example, and easily and quickly switch between. And could combine, of course - one for annual bills, one for longer term savings (eg for cars and a general emergency fund), one for holidays maybe? Then I guess keeping a float in the main account, and just shifting everything else to pots.

And then I suppose it doesn't matter if it's written down, because it will be visible in the accounts themselves.

Will keep pondering. I love having this space to think through the detail of things like this. Can you imagine waffling on like this with a 'normal' friend?? 😮😂😂

Greying_Pilgrim

Will keep pondering. I love having this space to think through the detail of things like this. Can you imagine waffling on like this with a 'normal' friend?? 😮😂😂

No, Cheery - hence why I (personally) value this space so much 😁

Greying X

EssexHebridean

Ours works almost exactly as your outline - 
The main current account, then a set of joint saving accounts below that which either of us can access.
Main short term emergency fund in a joint account elsewhere
Long term savings split between us

The idea being we can all access everything that is needed for the day to day stuff, and the "tide us over" money in case of short term emergency,
and
We both have access to a larger fund should it be needed. 

The only disadvantage of the pots being like that is in slightly lower interest rates (because it's not practical to completely redo all the savings accounts annually to keep chasing rates) - but as none of them generally run with enormous balances, I'm not worrying too much about that! 

Cheery_Daff

Thank you! 

You've prompted me to check what savings accounts I already have open with the main bank... One joint saver (with 48p in 😂), one in my own name (£1.23), and the regular saver that just finished, which for some reason seemed to be in my sole name 🤔 Maybe it had to be?? As a simple starting point I've transferred that balance into the joint savings one. 

We have a joint savings account elsewhere, higher interest than the bank but still easy access (not as quick as with the same bank) which has a random amount in (about £2k I think - it was drip feeding something at some point but not any more)

EssexHebridean

We always put regular savers in sole names as that then means if they have good enough rates to bother with, we can have one each! (And these days, they need to have decent rates or we simply don't bother with them!) 

PennysIntoPounds

I have the zopa app for pots so I can divide money and see how much is allocated to different needs but it's all in one place. Takes seconds to send it to 'main' account if the time has come to spend it (i.e. Christmas pot, tax pot etc)

rtandon27

@Cheery_Daff - are you inferring that "WE" are not normal???

Cheery_Daff

EssexHebridean said:

We always put regular savers in sole names as that then means if they have good enough rates to bother with, we can have one each! (And these days, they need to have decent rates or we simply don't bother with them!) 

I've remembered - that was in fact our original plan, but there was a mess up opening Mr C's account - we couldn't find any reference to it in the online bank, so assumed we'd not opened it, and tried again, at which point they closed the second one, and we still couldn't find the first 🙄 Obviousoy he was never going to ring the bank so we gave up 😂

Looks like they do still have a 7% regular saver so maybe we'll try again!

I'd not heard of Zopa PIP - it looks like they're actually a bank though. We'll be staying with our usual bank, and sadly they don't do pots at the minute. Maybe one day!

badmemory

I must admit that I don't think I could actually face paying YNAB to do something that I have been doing via a spreadsheet with no problems for over 20 years.  You do not want to know how much I was paying for food back then compared with now & back then I was working & really not shopping around as I do now.  Actually I don't even really want to compare with last year, because 10% is not even close.

PennysIntoPounds

They are a 'bank' but you don't have to transfer to them and you don't get a card, it's just an app for putting money in lovely organised pots *strokes organised pots*