How my money flows

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I have been thinking tons and tons on how I want to manage my money via different bank accounts, and was trying to work up a diagram to better explain my plan. I also kept going back and forth on the best set up to use, and then today I stumbled across Money Under 30’s banking setup which is almost precisely what I had planned, though his diagram is a little different.

Here’s mine:

• Bank of America Checking: Is my banking nucleus,and will continue to be. I love their Online Bill Pay setup, so all incoming money will continue to be dumped here. I pay bills 2 days after I get paid, so I won’t really be losing out on interest by continuing to pay from here instead of ING. I may cushion this account with $50-100.
• Bank of America Savings: I don’t really save anything here, though my Keep the Change has put about $70 in there. I don’t pay any fees on the account so I’ll probably keep it around, though as I stop using my BoFA debit card, my Keep the Change won’t get much of a workout.
• ING Electric Orange: This will become my debit card for day-to-day usage, my weekly allowance and spending money (gas, groceries, entertainment, etc.) I’ll be transferring a set amount here biweekly, and having JUST that spending money in the account and nothing else will make it easier to stay under budget and track rollover amounts.
• ING Orange Savings: I haven’t opened this account yet, will be doing so in a couple weeks with an initial $1,000 dump in for my Emergency Fund. In addition, I plan to set up a Freedom Fund, though not so much in Mary Hunt’s traditional sense. I’m not too into micro-separating my accounts, though I’m sure that’s a cool system that works well for a lot of people. For me my Freedom Fund will simply be another name for short-term savings, as in, having the freedom to make some fun purchases from time to time because they’ve been budgeted for. Eventually, ING savings will have another sub-account, a “Major Fund,” but that’s a ways off after credit cards and car are paid off.

How do you all manage your cash flow? Do you have a personal banking system that works well for you?

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