We’ve all heard the general rules of saving money. You should be putting 10% of your income into savings. Your emergency fund should cover 3-6 months of living expenses. We know savings is an important part of money management. But how many savings accounts should you actually have have? Here’s what our debt counselors think.
Prevent too much debt by having savings.
Should you have multiple savings accounts?
There’s no right answer, except that you should definitely be saving! However, there are several advantages to having multiple savings accounts. Consider how many savings goals you have. Chances are, you have more than one. Perhaps you’re saving up for a down payment on a house. You’re probably also building up your emergency savings. Maybe you also are saving up for a new car. It might be hard to keep track of how much you’ve saved toward each goal if you’re putting it all in one savings account.
You also may want to have multiple savings accounts due to the withdrawal limits on a single account. If you’ve reached your savings goal and are ready to make that down payment, you’ll need to withdraw money. But if you also been putting money away to save up for a vacation, and it’s time to buy those plane tickets, you’ll need to withdraw money again. If you need to withdraw money more times than one savings account allows, then our credit counseling advice is to have two or three.
Additionally, if you have been contributing to your savings account for a long time and have a significant amount of money in that account, you might exceed the insurance limit. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) protects you against the loss of your insured deposits if a bank or savings association fails. If your savings account looks like it might be exceeding the FDIC insurance limit, you may want to consider opening multiple savings accounts.
Are there any reasons to only have one savings account?
Of course! Some people prefer to only have one savings account because they are not able to reach the minimum balance on multiple savings accounts. If the minimum balance for your savings accounts are $1000, you might not be in a position to open up three savings accounts because you don’t have $3,000 readily available. You also might lose interest on your savings if you put your money in multiple accounts. Some of your savings accounts may have higher interest rates than others, so you could be missing out on having the highest interest rate for all of your savings.
The bottom line is, if you’re saving money every month, you’re on the right track!
If you’re struggling to pay off debt, ACCC can help. Schedule a free credit counseling session with us today.
