Should I get another bank account/savings acount?

Death of Rats

I work as a delivery driver, and as such I make a lot of money in tips. Over the last month I've developed the habit of putting around $28 of my tips in a can every day I work. If I do this consistently it gives me all the money I need to pay all my bills for the month.

But the whole can thing hasn't exactly been working too well. I've resorted to grabbing some money out of it several times. So I'm wondering, would my bank let me open a second account considering that my first account usually doesn't have more than $200-300 in it in the first place? Or should I be looking at opening a savings account so that my bill money might accrue interest?

MKR

It would surprise me if your bank doesn't have a dual savings/checking setup where you can have both on the same account.

Death of Rats

That's actually what I'm wanting. Something where I could transfer in money from my checking account into my savings account online.

RUNN1NGMAN

A savings account might not serve your needs because depending on the account the number of transactions (transfers, checks written, withdrawals, etc.) can be very limited. Any reason why you don't want to just deposit it in your checking account?

Thylacine

That's what I have death. Dual savings/checking. I think I can transfer money in and out of it 6 times a month online or something without a fee? And I can go into the credit union and do it for free. It's not a bad deal.

When I was a waitress I did something similar to you, I had a piggy bank I stuffed all my excess money in. It built up faster for me in there than in the bank though...I'm way to spend happy with a debit card. If my money was a home I was too lazy to go home and get it and come back for something that I didn't really want.

Death of Rats

I want to have it separated out from my normal money. I have a really hard time getting ahead of myself when it comes to my bills, I often forget to put away enough money for the beginning of the month (not to the point of being late or overdrafting, but to the point where all my tip money has to go to my bills for a week and I'm broke until the next payday). Having this money in a seperate account would make it harder for me to go "oh, I want to go out and do this, I'll just grab it out of this can I have and replace the money later!" It'd just allow me to build up better spending habits.

Shadowfire

We have a checking account and moneymarket account. We set them up so that the moneymarket can't really be touched - we have to go to the bank to withdraw money, and the ATM doesn't see it. We also have a certain amount transfered from the checking to the moneymarket every week. Because this is automatically done, it doesn't count against our monthly limit.

If your bank doesn't have something similar, I'd be surprised.

dispatch.o

Death of Rats wrote: »

I want to have it separated out from my normal money. I have a really hard time getting ahead of myself when it comes to my bills, I often forget to put away enough money for the beginning of the month (not to the point of being late or overdrafting, but to the point where all my tip money has to go to my bills for a week and I'm broke until the next payday). Having this money in a seperate account would make it harder for me to go "oh, I want to go out and do this, I'll just grab it out of this can I have and replace the money later!" It'd just allow me to build up better spending habits.

It shouldn't be any problem to open a second checking account under the one you already have. A lot of people who run businesses from home do it all of the time, though you may have a small service fee.

Midshipman

Most banks allow unlimited numbers of deposits to savings accounts each month. It's only withdrawals that normally have a limited allowable frequency.

firewaterword

If you're after interest, just open an interest-bearing checking account. I'm a big fan of Schwab's investor checking - they reimburse your ATM fees, have a variable interest rate (1% at the moment, but that's down from like %3.5 way back when).

I'm sure there are other institutions that offer a similar setup.

EggyToast

Yeah Schwab's thing is solid. ING Direct offers a better interest rate, but it's just a savings account.

If you just want to sock money away and have it do "nothing," get a savings account at a bank. Their interest rates are so low on their vanilla savings account that it might as well be 0%, even in boom times. For comparison, the highest my ING account got to was about 5.25%! Just for having money sit there! Now it's at 1.65%.

Anyway, yeah, if you want to put money "away" so that you can actually save it up, I'd suggest ING. It takes about 2 days for money to go into it or out of it, so, say, if you put $50 in on Wednesday it would show up there on Friday or over the weekend. If you needed money on Friday, you'd just take it out on Tuesday (to be sure).

It's great if you can plan your expenses a couple days in advance. If you typically wait for the last minute and then suddenly need all of your money, you want something local and affiliated with your current bank. But yeah, ING is great -- no fees, just need a balance of $100 to get started.