Question

Does anyone transfer bill money into your savings account until its time to pay your bill? Example, rent is 800/month, we have a paycheck every week, so we pull 200 from every check and put into savings. How do you keep track of what you have transferred ? Looking for better ways to track.  

Answer 1

I have a checking account specifically for my mortgage payment, so I transfer to that account and pay out of it as well

Answer 2

I do that as well. I keep around $100 in my checking and the rest in savings. I pull bill money out as need and just keep record in my calendar/bill tracker.  

Answer 3

I do that as well. And I just track it on a tracker. Also my bank allows me to put a memo in when I transfer $ so I use that to label it.  

Answer 4

We have two bank accounts. I don’t do cash envelopes, so i keep track of it all through good notes. I total all of the bill money and transfer it all to the “bills checking account”, that way if it’s autopay, it takes out on its own and we don’t have to calculate it. That account has a $150 buffer in case something comes out early, it’ll cover it.  

Answer 5

I have a separate account that my bill money goes into and my bills auto come out of. I put half the amount of my monthly bills every two weeks.  

Answer 6

I do that! I have 6 checking accounts: mortgage/insurance, gas, childcare, regular joint, and two individual. It makes more sense for us. Much easier to track for me.  

Answer 7

I have a separate checking account for rent and transfer 1/4 of it per week, 1/5 if there's 5 fridays, and then when I pay it it's paid from that account

Answer 8

We have a completely separate checking account that we transfer our bill money into. Almost all our bills are on auto pay from that account & the ones that arent are still linked to the account

Answer 9

Keep in mind that many savings accounts only allow 6 withdrawals a month. I prefer to just pay my bills early, or in the case of your rent, I would just track a $200 withdrawal from my tracker and then pay it all at once.  

Answer 10

I split mine in two, track it as “1/2 rent” and move to savings. Then when it’s time to pay my rent, I move it back to my chq and email transfer it, I don’t record the move on my tracker. Hope that makes sense

Comments

@wine3 I split my rent as well, but it stays in my checking account.  

Answer 11

We use two separate checking accounts. One for bills and one for everything else. We just transfer money to our bills account every payday.  

Answer 12

I have a seperate checking account for mortgage and bill pay it from that account. My husband gets paid weekly and we transfer money every week and then divide my 2 checks into that account. Also for our car payment its loan is thru out credit union so i just transfer money every week to make my payment weekly. As long as my whole amount is paid by due date. I just divide it out.  

Answer 13

If you do online rent can you make payments? If you can’t keep track electrically sometimes I just take out cash and store it in separate envelopes.  

Answer 14

I don't physically transfer it, but I enter it into my checkbook register so it doesn't show as being "available".  

Comments

@hemialgia that's what I do as well. Saves me from. Transferring so much

Answer 15

I use two checking accounts. One is for everyday “cashless” spending and the other is a bill pay account with everything set on auto pay. We dump enough money in there each week to always keep a rolling amount sufficient to cover what comes out. Every six months or so I reevaluate and remove any extra money that has accumulated there.  

Answer 16

We have 2 checking accounts. Every paycheck gets deposited into our primary checking account. We pay everything that can be paid early with that account and then the money for any other bills and sinking funds gets transferred to the other account. I have a To Do list page in my planner that I use to keep track of everything. We are a cashless family so every payday money gets deposited and then immediately paid to bills or moved to the other account. The only money left in our primary checking is the money budgeted for groceries and gas for the next 7 days.  

Answer 17

Yes I do this with my water bill (paid quarterly), property taxes and a personal loan (family funded). Water bill and property taxes goes into my savings. (Started using Chase's autosave to put it into buckets). For the loan it's transferred to joint checking account with my mom. I take the amount due each month and split it between my paychecks. She then transfers it out of the joint account and to the HELOC. I keep track of it on the BBP worksheets. And before I used this - I had a notebook I would use to track everything and how much money was leftover after bills.  

Answer 18

No, I don’t. Apparently I’m in the minority here. Bills and income go through checking. Saving stays in my savings accounts.  

Answer 19

I use Quicken to balance my checkbook as well as create a monthly budget. In most cases, if it's a long-term savings item then yes, I'll move the funds. Otherwise, I put a placeholder in Quicken to show that the transaction is accounted for even if it's days/weeks before the actual payment occurs.  

Answer 20

Yes we do. We have a desperate savings account just for rent/ mortgage

Answer 21

Separate checking accounts, but with the same bank. So easily transferred between. We have a bills checking and an envelope checking. We don’t use the envelope checking much anymore because we get paid weekly now, but we used it a lot when we got paid every other week, as we’d transfer two weeks of envelope money into their, and pull half each week. Open up a checking account just for rent, and put the $200 in there each paycheck. And then have the rent pulled from that account.  

Answer 22

I’m an adjunct college instructor at a community college. I get paid twice a semester, at midterm and finals. I put my paycheck in savings and only pull out what I need to pay bills every month.  

Answer 23

No i have a bill account

Answer 24

Yes I do

Answer 25

Yep, I do. I transfer money every payday to my savings to pay for my mortgage. At the end of the month I'll transfer it back to my checking and make my mortgage payment in full :)

Answer 26

I do the same and have been wondering how everyone does this as well! My mortgage is an allotment to a separate checking account and I just ignore it. I am realizing that that is not a good idea.  

Answer 27

Yep. Just count it as "income" on your weekly tracker. IE: bill transfer or whatever you want to call it :-)

Answer 28

I have 2 checking accounts, one is for paying bills and autopay, the other is for spending

Comments

@schaaf ☝️

Answer 29

My husband and I have a joint account that we pay into just for mortgage and house bills. I just keep a Savings Tracker from Miko's free resource library in my budget binder and keep track of it there. Each month I will print a new one and transfer "starting balance" over.  

Answer 30

When money was tight, I used to buy money orders and then pay my bills.  

Answer 31

Yes ma'am. My mortgage is split up in 4 weekly payments and they draft that savings acct on the 1st for my payment. Works out so much better for me that way.  

Comments

@fathometer me too

Answer 32

I just have auto transfers for my car payment. I pay it with 15th paycheck so on the 1st $300 is transferred to my savings and on the 15th the $300 is transferred back to my checking because the auto payment goes out the 16th.  

Answer 33

I Pay my rent online, and just pay half every other week.  

Answer 34

I transfer to the savings account then have the auto pay come out of that account.  

Answer 35

I do that too!  

Answer 36

I use online banking. I keep some of our bills money In our bills account. Others I keep in sinking funds in a savings account. To get the interest. I transfer the money just before we pay. I use fudget to manually track my envelope balances.  

Answer 37

I do that

Answer 38

We use ynab. Everything stays in one account, but is in its own category. that account earns a little interest too.  

Answer 39

I do for my mortgage. There is a memo spot when I transfer the money so I just put in the memo mortgage

Answer 40

I opened a separate checking account at my bank for my mortgage and have the money automatically deposited into that account. Then I just pay it when it’s due

Answer 41

With our bank we have a spend, reserve, and save account all linked together. We transfer those things to our reserve account. It’s kind of like a temporary savings.  

Comments

I should add we can make separate little accounts within the reserve account and name them. It kind of works like envelopes!  

Answer 42

I do for mortgage and daycare. I have a savings account labeled for it. I know half of each bill goes straight from the bank account into that account.  

Answer 43

We have a separate checking account for bills. Whenever we get paid, we transfer X amount to that account and all our bills are paid from that account. Things like groceries, car maintenance, etc. is paid from our primary checking. A few of our friends have started doing this and have found it to be easier than managing the checking with bills coming out at different times.