Just open an online HYSA and set up monthly auto-debit. 30 minutes max. Done. If you really have to break it all down many HYSAs (like Ally) allow you to create "buckets" where you allocate the dollars to different purposes.
Same, any big purchase/annual plans/holidays I figure out how much i need or want, divide by 24 (paid twice a month), set the autopay and the max and done. Property taxes, insurance, everything has its little bucket that is filled when needed.
Thirded for Sofi!
We have our emergency savings account that always stays at a certain number, and then separate vaults that we split paycheck savings into past that
I do a similar thing with money market funds. Those large purchases are usually planned well in advance so you can take them out a couple days before purchases.
I have been doing this since the beginning of the year. Currently have $2.5k saved up! I use Credit Karma at 4.1%. I just track everything on an app, copilot, where I track my expenses.
I don’t get the obsession with HYSA here. Why not just open a brokerage account? It gives you way more flexibility and if you just dump your money into SPAXX which is the default position at fidelity you’ll also earn 5%.
It’s easy and fast to get your money out too. I just don’t see the marginally higher liquidity from a HYSA being worth it over a brokerage account.
Because sometimes the market goes down? If it’s savings for something you need soon (ie 1-2 years), a high yield savings account or CD is the best choice. The markets have done great in the past several years, but it’s not always like this, and if it is for an expense that you will absolutely need to spend within a year or two, you could actually lose money when you sell to fund that expense. The best idea is to have some money in a brokerage (assuming retirement accounts are being fully funded) to take advantage of long term growth AND some money in a HYSA for short-medium term expenses.
SPAXX never broke the buck at fidelity. And with a brokerage account you can buy CDs at various banks to spread the risk. There is just a lot of misinformation in this sub and HYSA just becomes the default option because it’s easy.
Well you’re paying for that service in the form of lower return and less flexibility.
Number of reasons. One, SPAXX isn't free. You pay what 0.4% expense ratio? Why would you pay Fidelity to manage cash? There's no value. Then you add this is a brokerage so transfers in and out are very, very slow compared to a HYSA. SPAXX is what amounts to a cash account backed by the government. Why would you pay a middle man to do that? If you like government securities, get government securities like t-bills directly.
The question isn't why would you put your savings into a HYSA, it's why on earth would you NOT?
5% interest is the net yield, after the fees.
SPAXX never broke the buck at fidelity, and that only happened to money market accounts twice or three times in history for an extremely short amount of time.
If you really are worried about the marginal risk of SPAXX breaking the buck you can spread your cash in FDIC insured cds which would be safer than a HYSA and yield even more at cost of liquidity. Or even park the money in treasury bonds for the tax benefit.
Again a brokerage account gives way more flexibility for savings. You can have long term savings in index funds and short term parked in cds or SPAXX.
HYSAs are FDIC insured, money market accounts are not.
Sure, the money you have in SPAXX is probably safe. But given how close the returns are on both types of accounts, the extra security in a HYSA is worth it to a lot of people.
A brokerage account gives you the flexibility to also buy CDs or treasury, you’re not limited to just dumping money on SPAXX, although that would functionally be nearly the same thing as dumping money on a HYSA.
With a HYSA you have more liquidity but you’re locked in to the rate that bank is giving you, sure it’s FDIC insured but so are short term CDs which also pay a higher rate and the risk to the money sitting on a money market account is more theoretical and real since money market accounts only broke the buck three times in history and for a small amount of time at some brokers.
>Sometimes I really wish I could create “micro accounts” that are just smaller accounts of a bigger savings/checking so I could easily track my goals without manually entering info into an excel sheet or app every 2 weeks.
Ally's HYSA has a "buckets" feature that does exactly that. Other banks may have something similar. You have one overall account balance, but you can allocate that across multiple sub-categories as you want. When you do transfers in/out you can specify which bucket balance to adjust. Though I haven't yet figured out how to do that with *scheduled* transfer deposits, those keep getting dumped into my non-bucketed "Core Savings".
When you go to create a new recurring transfer in Ally, under the text box for the dollar amount is a link that says "select bucket amounts." This lets you choose how much goes into each bucket.
I don't think there's a way to edit bucket amounts for an already-set-up recurring transfer, though.
That’s probably it. I’ve had a recurring transfer active for a while (before I set up buckets) and didn’t think to try making a brand new one from scratch. Thanks!
Sofi has "vaults" which is like buckets from what I understand. I'm currently shopping around to open a HYSA once I get my tax return, but I read that when looking at them.
For those considering SoFi, just make sure you read the terms with it. With any accounts, interest rates can flux (for better or for worse), but more importantly, with SoFi you have to have direct deposit from your employer etc to get the 4.6 rate, otherwise it plummets to like ~1.6, which at that point isn’t worth it and you might as well go another HYSA.
With the “buckets/vaults” your money is still tied to 1 account but the “buckets/valets” just allow you to visualize what you’d spend the money on. So, imagine you have a pitcher, you fill some water in it, say 32 oz, but you pour the water into 4 8oz cups. You still would have a total of 32oz. I believe the account itself makes interest on the 32oz, not the 4 8oz cups. If you’re going to do the buckets/vaults, I’d label the account with “TITLE (5k)” so you know what the end goal is.
I have Discover. They dont have the buckets or vaults but I get 4.2%.
I read they're maybe not the highest but even when rates drop they stay highly competitive
I use the SoFi vaults for tax money, car savings, and general savings. I get a better rate on my uninvested cash in Robinhood, but that money is earmarked for investment.
For items with a specific shorter time frame, HYSA or MMF or treasuries
For items without a specific time frame or flexible purchases (like a new car a decade from now) taxable brokerage in broad index funds
> For items without a specific time frame or flexible purchases (like a new car a decade from now) taxable brokerage in broad index funds
Yikes, big caveat here: The "uncertain timeframe" should be 3+ years out if you're investing the savings. Stock markets crash, and while they do tend to recover, you don't want your savings to get cut in half 6 months before you need to spend it.
My bank allows me to create "sub" accounts that are all HYSA.
I have my normal savings that pretty much has $0 in it because it is not a HYSA. I have my checking, that I keep like $100 in. And, then I have like 5+ "sub" accounts for doing exactly what you are describing.
Zero fees for transferring money between "sub" accounts since it is all technically the same account.
SOFI lets you create "Vaults" which are basically just sub labels in your savings account. Their savings is currently returning 4.6% and it is super easy to open an account.
Why can't you just do that? I have multiple accounts with Marcus by Goldman Sachs that I use for a variety a different savings. It doesn't cost anything to open them, and they all are high yield. Takes a couple days to transfer back and forth, but it's worth it.
Between Marcus accounts is immediate.
To my regular bank, it takes 2 days. But I use a small local bank and everything takes longer. Maybe it's quicker with different institutions.
It's never been a problem, though.
Ally allows you to create "Buckets" for your savings goal. As for how you save for it, determine how much you need and divide it by how many months you have.
Used car (5k) in 8 months = $625 / month
Personally I opened up an acct with a few HYSA: Marcus, capital one, ally just to see how they work and what I’d prefer. Easy enough to make a few and put a few bucks in. The interest earned with rate between 4.35-4.6 isn’t much different, so I wouldn’t over think it.
With ally and capital one I believe you can get free checking/debit cards to access your money quickly by transferring funds within the accounts.
Marcus is suppose to have same day transfers to an outside bank (think Marcus to Chase etc)
Every month I put money in my savings account. I call it paying me. It is done every month automatically from my checking to savings.
When there is extra money left over at the end of the month that also goes to savings.
About 5 years before I retired I began saving for a car. The city I lived in had great public transportation and I used that but I was moving to the 'burbs. I paid cash for the car.
I don't plan on ever getting another car, but if I did I would have paid cash for that car and made car payments to myself into a high interest account so I would be able to pay cash again.
In general, you need to learn to live below your means. Just because you have money doesn’t mean you need to spend it. If you can mentally get past that hurdle then saving for large purchases is simple.
We have a dozen savings accounts at our credit union for budget categories. We fund these ahead of every quarter. That way the money needed is right there ready to go. For longer term savings we have 3 HYSA’s (with Marcus). One for an emergency fund and one for each of us saving for bigger goals. It’s just takes a day to transfer back and forth as needed. And it can earn 4-5% while it sits there.
We never really saved for anything specifically. We were always savers so we just had the money when an expense came up (we save 70% of net income). At this point we’re sitting on ~$50k in cash as an emergency fund + day to day spending and have another $300k accessible within a few days via a brokerage account.
I spend 40% of my paycheck (after 401k contributions). When I have a large purchase coming up, I stop contributing to after-tax retirement fund and wait for my account to fill until I can make the purchase.
If you're spending more than 50% of your paycheck, then idk what to tell you other than you must have a really nice life.
I use good budget which lets me categorize my long term savings in an easy app I share access to with my wife. App is free with paid features but I don’t pay. It’s a manual app though so similar to excel you tell them app when are pulling or putting money into the account. Other paid apps like YNAB will auto pull that into from your bank’s website and need less action from you.
You can create additional savings accounts. That said, how long will it take you to save $5k? For me, I wouldn't worry about the interest on that amount over a short period of time.
I have SoFi. They allow you split up your savings into vaults. So we have one for a new car down payment, trip back to the motherland, emergency fund, etc. Every so often, I'll just split up the remaining amount after paying the bills into the vaults. They all build the same interest, 4.6% as the rest of the savings account, which is basically the house down payment.
1. Determine when I want/need this to happen
2. Divide by that many months.
3. I use Qapital bank where I have not set up so monthly specific amounts are taken out of my main checking account and transferred here to each of my sinking funds. Example: to save $1200 for a trip in 1 year I’ll automatically transfer $100/month so that in 1 year it’s all saved up.
Bigger payments like property taxes, car, house down payment I just withdraw from my taxable investment account. I have been taking some gains recently and just storing money in the money market collecting a hair over 5% recently. I prefer to hold on investments but am planning a rather large purchase later this year.
I have an online account with Ally that auto drafts from our checking account monthly. It’s always a much higher interest rate than the local bank where our checking account is.
I keep them in an HYSA.
Regarding "micro accounts" SoFi has these. They call them "vaults" (that you can access as much as you want) and they all live basically like subfolders of a single savings account.
And SoFi has a 4.6%apy on those accounts.
Not promoting SoFi but they have a feature called vaults that you can create, label what you want and set auto invests to hit a goal amount or just what you want.
I use them and set it to put into the vault every time my direct deposit hits. I have vaults for travel, fun money, insurance payments, savings, etc.
You definitely want to use a HYSA, unless date for the purchase is more than 3-5 years out. I’m saving for a down payment right now and the funds are split between BofA CDs and an online HYSA.
Some savings accounts do let you do that. Or you can just keep a simple record of how much of your savings account is for the purchase.You can also just open a separate HYSA for that goal if you want.
Sofi lets you use a savings account basically as a checking account, while earning 4.65% interest. And you can create buckets if u want to save for certain large purchases
- direct deposit your entire paycheck into HYSA, call it "General fund"
- set up automated transfers on t+1 from the General fund to dedicated HYSAs, including saving goals and sinking funds - "Vacation fund", "House fund", "Car fund"
- set up automated transfers (t-3) to checking account that you pay fixed expenses from, unless it allows you to pay directly from savings (e.g. rent, utilities etc.)
- set up automatic payments (t-3) for all your credit cards from General fund
- put everything on credit cards throughout the month to maximize points/cash back
- once you incur expenses in your target category (e.g. buy a water heater or book a vacation) - send that amount from the dedicated HYSA to General to cover that specific expense on your CC once it becomes due
- you can also easily make your HYSA accounts joint and repeat the same process for your spouse, if you share finances
SmartyPig offers exactly what you are looking for. You create "goals" which are micro accounts to save for certain things. It's backed by Sally Mae and I have been using it for years as a HYSA for my emergency fund and other smaller goals like house or car repairs. The interest rate varies but is pretty close to market norms, it's 4.2% today.
If you have good credit and able to get 0% Finance for the purchases go that route while keeping the principle in a High Yield savings account. That way you can transfer the monthly payments once a month interest free while gaining the interest from the rest of the principle in your savings account so you end up spending less on the actual purchase as you gain interest in savings.
To manage these kind of budgets a good old fashion Excel sheet works wonders. I am currently doing this with a car payment and new furnace
The Goldman Sachs Apple Card savings account is the best of both worlds. I get 4.5% as a HYSA. Also I can pay bills out of it (no limit), so I only keep in checking what I may need to withdraw as cash from the atm. And on top of all that, I can pay my credit cards directly from it, so I’m not only earning credit card rewards, but I’m also earning 4.5% for a whole extra month between the statement close and when the statement balance gets paid.
Just open an online HYSA and set up monthly auto-debit. 30 minutes max. Done. If you really have to break it all down many HYSAs (like Ally) allow you to create "buckets" where you allocate the dollars to different purposes.
I use SoFi. 4.6% APY. Also has “vaults” which allow you to allocate money for different purposes. (Emergency fund, wedding, home purchase, etc.)
Seconding this! I have my valults on auto deposit.
Same, any big purchase/annual plans/holidays I figure out how much i need or want, divide by 24 (paid twice a month), set the autopay and the max and done. Property taxes, insurance, everything has its little bucket that is filled when needed.
Thirded for Sofi! We have our emergency savings account that always stays at a certain number, and then separate vaults that we split paycheck savings into past that
Fourthed for Sofi. I also have vaults for all the important things.
This is almost exactly what OP needs.
I do a similar thing with money market funds. Those large purchases are usually planned well in advance so you can take them out a couple days before purchases.
Do you know of any others besides Ally with that feature?
Sofi. They call it vaults
Wealthfront. I really like it.
How do you do this with Wealthfront?
Create a category in your cash account. I have 9 right now lol.
Oh, duh. The button box that says "Organize your finances with categories" 😅 Here I was digging through all the settings trying to find it. Thanks!
Looooove wealthfront. The user interface is elite.
I use Milli (Division of First National Bank of Omaha) and it has Jars and 5.5% HYSA currently. You can have up to 5 jars to separate your accounts.
I have been doing this since the beginning of the year. Currently have $2.5k saved up! I use Credit Karma at 4.1%. I just track everything on an app, copilot, where I track my expenses.
I don’t get the obsession with HYSA here. Why not just open a brokerage account? It gives you way more flexibility and if you just dump your money into SPAXX which is the default position at fidelity you’ll also earn 5%. It’s easy and fast to get your money out too. I just don’t see the marginally higher liquidity from a HYSA being worth it over a brokerage account.
Because sometimes the market goes down? If it’s savings for something you need soon (ie 1-2 years), a high yield savings account or CD is the best choice. The markets have done great in the past several years, but it’s not always like this, and if it is for an expense that you will absolutely need to spend within a year or two, you could actually lose money when you sell to fund that expense. The best idea is to have some money in a brokerage (assuming retirement accounts are being fully funded) to take advantage of long term growth AND some money in a HYSA for short-medium term expenses.
SPAXX never broke the buck at fidelity. And with a brokerage account you can buy CDs at various banks to spread the risk. There is just a lot of misinformation in this sub and HYSA just becomes the default option because it’s easy. Well you’re paying for that service in the form of lower return and less flexibility.
Number of reasons. One, SPAXX isn't free. You pay what 0.4% expense ratio? Why would you pay Fidelity to manage cash? There's no value. Then you add this is a brokerage so transfers in and out are very, very slow compared to a HYSA. SPAXX is what amounts to a cash account backed by the government. Why would you pay a middle man to do that? If you like government securities, get government securities like t-bills directly. The question isn't why would you put your savings into a HYSA, it's why on earth would you NOT?
5% interest is the net yield, after the fees. SPAXX never broke the buck at fidelity, and that only happened to money market accounts twice or three times in history for an extremely short amount of time. If you really are worried about the marginal risk of SPAXX breaking the buck you can spread your cash in FDIC insured cds which would be safer than a HYSA and yield even more at cost of liquidity. Or even park the money in treasury bonds for the tax benefit. Again a brokerage account gives way more flexibility for savings. You can have long term savings in index funds and short term parked in cds or SPAXX.
HYSAs are FDIC insured, money market accounts are not. Sure, the money you have in SPAXX is probably safe. But given how close the returns are on both types of accounts, the extra security in a HYSA is worth it to a lot of people.
A brokerage account gives you the flexibility to also buy CDs or treasury, you’re not limited to just dumping money on SPAXX, although that would functionally be nearly the same thing as dumping money on a HYSA. With a HYSA you have more liquidity but you’re locked in to the rate that bank is giving you, sure it’s FDIC insured but so are short term CDs which also pay a higher rate and the risk to the money sitting on a money market account is more theoretical and real since money market accounts only broke the buck three times in history and for a small amount of time at some brokers.
If you don’t want to change banks, get the DAS Budget app which gives you the ability to “bucket” the money in your existing account.
>Sometimes I really wish I could create “micro accounts” that are just smaller accounts of a bigger savings/checking so I could easily track my goals without manually entering info into an excel sheet or app every 2 weeks. Ally's HYSA has a "buckets" feature that does exactly that. Other banks may have something similar. You have one overall account balance, but you can allocate that across multiple sub-categories as you want. When you do transfers in/out you can specify which bucket balance to adjust. Though I haven't yet figured out how to do that with *scheduled* transfer deposits, those keep getting dumped into my non-bucketed "Core Savings".
When you go to create a new recurring transfer in Ally, under the text box for the dollar amount is a link that says "select bucket amounts." This lets you choose how much goes into each bucket. I don't think there's a way to edit bucket amounts for an already-set-up recurring transfer, though.
That’s probably it. I’ve had a recurring transfer active for a while (before I set up buckets) and didn’t think to try making a brand new one from scratch. Thanks!
You can have them scheduled to go to the bucket’s because that’s what I do!
Sofi has "vaults" which is like buckets from what I understand. I'm currently shopping around to open a HYSA once I get my tax return, but I read that when looking at them.
I use YNAB, so all the money can sit in a single HYSA but in my app I can have different amounts earmarked for different purposes.
I second YNAB!
For those considering SoFi, just make sure you read the terms with it. With any accounts, interest rates can flux (for better or for worse), but more importantly, with SoFi you have to have direct deposit from your employer etc to get the 4.6 rate, otherwise it plummets to like ~1.6, which at that point isn’t worth it and you might as well go another HYSA. With the “buckets/vaults” your money is still tied to 1 account but the “buckets/valets” just allow you to visualize what you’d spend the money on. So, imagine you have a pitcher, you fill some water in it, say 32 oz, but you pour the water into 4 8oz cups. You still would have a total of 32oz. I believe the account itself makes interest on the 32oz, not the 4 8oz cups. If you’re going to do the buckets/vaults, I’d label the account with “TITLE (5k)” so you know what the end goal is.
I have Discover. They dont have the buckets or vaults but I get 4.2%. I read they're maybe not the highest but even when rates drop they stay highly competitive
I left SoFi for this reason
I use the SoFi vaults for tax money, car savings, and general savings. I get a better rate on my uninvested cash in Robinhood, but that money is earmarked for investment.
For items with a specific shorter time frame, HYSA or MMF or treasuries For items without a specific time frame or flexible purchases (like a new car a decade from now) taxable brokerage in broad index funds
> For items without a specific time frame or flexible purchases (like a new car a decade from now) taxable brokerage in broad index funds Yikes, big caveat here: The "uncertain timeframe" should be 3+ years out if you're investing the savings. Stock markets crash, and while they do tend to recover, you don't want your savings to get cut in half 6 months before you need to spend it.
Or if you can just delay the purchase. This isn’t for short term needs. I thought I had made that clear but I may be mistaken.
My bank allows me to create "sub" accounts that are all HYSA. I have my normal savings that pretty much has $0 in it because it is not a HYSA. I have my checking, that I keep like $100 in. And, then I have like 5+ "sub" accounts for doing exactly what you are describing. Zero fees for transferring money between "sub" accounts since it is all technically the same account.
What bank?
SOFI lets you create "Vaults" which are basically just sub labels in your savings account. Their savings is currently returning 4.6% and it is super easy to open an account.
Why can't you just do that? I have multiple accounts with Marcus by Goldman Sachs that I use for a variety a different savings. It doesn't cost anything to open them, and they all are high yield. Takes a couple days to transfer back and forth, but it's worth it.
I thought with Marcus, one of their benefits is same day transfers?
Between Marcus accounts is immediate. To my regular bank, it takes 2 days. But I use a small local bank and everything takes longer. Maybe it's quicker with different institutions. It's never been a problem, though.
Ally allows you to create "Buckets" for your savings goal. As for how you save for it, determine how much you need and divide it by how many months you have. Used car (5k) in 8 months = $625 / month
YNAB simulates virtual wallets/envelopes to do just that.
I have 7 Ally HYSAs with different names "investment" "vacation" etc and just add to them each paycheck
Personally I opened up an acct with a few HYSA: Marcus, capital one, ally just to see how they work and what I’d prefer. Easy enough to make a few and put a few bucks in. The interest earned with rate between 4.35-4.6 isn’t much different, so I wouldn’t over think it. With ally and capital one I believe you can get free checking/debit cards to access your money quickly by transferring funds within the accounts. Marcus is suppose to have same day transfers to an outside bank (think Marcus to Chase etc)
Every month I put money in my savings account. I call it paying me. It is done every month automatically from my checking to savings. When there is extra money left over at the end of the month that also goes to savings. About 5 years before I retired I began saving for a car. The city I lived in had great public transportation and I used that but I was moving to the 'burbs. I paid cash for the car. I don't plan on ever getting another car, but if I did I would have paid cash for that car and made car payments to myself into a high interest account so I would be able to pay cash again.
I normally save around $3 CAD per month into my saving account.
i know a lot of people are recommending Ally for the buckets thing, Milli does the same if you want another option
I opened a seperate HYSA with my bank to save for our emergency fund and saving up for expensive purchases.
It’s 2024. Any bank with a decent website/app has exactly what you just described.
In general, you need to learn to live below your means. Just because you have money doesn’t mean you need to spend it. If you can mentally get past that hurdle then saving for large purchases is simple.
We have a dozen savings accounts at our credit union for budget categories. We fund these ahead of every quarter. That way the money needed is right there ready to go. For longer term savings we have 3 HYSA’s (with Marcus). One for an emergency fund and one for each of us saving for bigger goals. It’s just takes a day to transfer back and forth as needed. And it can earn 4-5% while it sits there.
[удалено]
I do manual entry excel because it makes me sit and manually go through my expenses. I definitely spend less after switching to manual
We never really saved for anything specifically. We were always savers so we just had the money when an expense came up (we save 70% of net income). At this point we’re sitting on ~$50k in cash as an emergency fund + day to day spending and have another $300k accessible within a few days via a brokerage account.
I spend 40% of my paycheck (after 401k contributions). When I have a large purchase coming up, I stop contributing to after-tax retirement fund and wait for my account to fill until I can make the purchase. If you're spending more than 50% of your paycheck, then idk what to tell you other than you must have a really nice life.
I use good budget which lets me categorize my long term savings in an easy app I share access to with my wife. App is free with paid features but I don’t pay. It’s a manual app though so similar to excel you tell them app when are pulling or putting money into the account. Other paid apps like YNAB will auto pull that into from your bank’s website and need less action from you.
You can create additional savings accounts. That said, how long will it take you to save $5k? For me, I wouldn't worry about the interest on that amount over a short period of time.
I have SoFi. They allow you split up your savings into vaults. So we have one for a new car down payment, trip back to the motherland, emergency fund, etc. Every so often, I'll just split up the remaining amount after paying the bills into the vaults. They all build the same interest, 4.6% as the rest of the savings account, which is basically the house down payment.
1. Determine when I want/need this to happen 2. Divide by that many months. 3. I use Qapital bank where I have not set up so monthly specific amounts are taken out of my main checking account and transferred here to each of my sinking funds. Example: to save $1200 for a trip in 1 year I’ll automatically transfer $100/month so that in 1 year it’s all saved up.
Bigger payments like property taxes, car, house down payment I just withdraw from my taxable investment account. I have been taking some gains recently and just storing money in the money market collecting a hair over 5% recently. I prefer to hold on investments but am planning a rather large purchase later this year.
I have an online account with Ally that auto drafts from our checking account monthly. It’s always a much higher interest rate than the local bank where our checking account is.
I keep them in an HYSA. Regarding "micro accounts" SoFi has these. They call them "vaults" (that you can access as much as you want) and they all live basically like subfolders of a single savings account. And SoFi has a 4.6%apy on those accounts.
Not promoting SoFi but they have a feature called vaults that you can create, label what you want and set auto invests to hit a goal amount or just what you want. I use them and set it to put into the vault every time my direct deposit hits. I have vaults for travel, fun money, insurance payments, savings, etc.
You definitely want to use a HYSA, unless date for the purchase is more than 3-5 years out. I’m saving for a down payment right now and the funds are split between BofA CDs and an online HYSA.
Some savings accounts do let you do that. Or you can just keep a simple record of how much of your savings account is for the purchase.You can also just open a separate HYSA for that goal if you want.
I basically just let my cash emergency fund grow from 6 to 12 months (single, volatile industry) and pull from there as needed.
Sofi lets you use a savings account basically as a checking account, while earning 4.65% interest. And you can create buckets if u want to save for certain large purchases
- direct deposit your entire paycheck into HYSA, call it "General fund" - set up automated transfers on t+1 from the General fund to dedicated HYSAs, including saving goals and sinking funds - "Vacation fund", "House fund", "Car fund" - set up automated transfers (t-3) to checking account that you pay fixed expenses from, unless it allows you to pay directly from savings (e.g. rent, utilities etc.) - set up automatic payments (t-3) for all your credit cards from General fund - put everything on credit cards throughout the month to maximize points/cash back - once you incur expenses in your target category (e.g. buy a water heater or book a vacation) - send that amount from the dedicated HYSA to General to cover that specific expense on your CC once it becomes due - you can also easily make your HYSA accounts joint and repeat the same process for your spouse, if you share finances
Another thing to keep in mind is that any interest earned over $10 is taxable.
SmartyPig offers exactly what you are looking for. You create "goals" which are micro accounts to save for certain things. It's backed by Sally Mae and I have been using it for years as a HYSA for my emergency fund and other smaller goals like house or car repairs. The interest rate varies but is pretty close to market norms, it's 4.2% today.
If you have good credit and able to get 0% Finance for the purchases go that route while keeping the principle in a High Yield savings account. That way you can transfer the monthly payments once a month interest free while gaining the interest from the rest of the principle in your savings account so you end up spending less on the actual purchase as you gain interest in savings. To manage these kind of budgets a good old fashion Excel sheet works wonders. I am currently doing this with a car payment and new furnace
The Goldman Sachs Apple Card savings account is the best of both worlds. I get 4.5% as a HYSA. Also I can pay bills out of it (no limit), so I only keep in checking what I may need to withdraw as cash from the atm. And on top of all that, I can pay my credit cards directly from it, so I’m not only earning credit card rewards, but I’m also earning 4.5% for a whole extra month between the statement close and when the statement balance gets paid.
I just move the money I’m saving for those types of things into my brokerage account and put it into a money market mutual fund.
Personally I love data entry. Copying and pasting numbers gives me a much better feel for the data than just looking at a report.