How did you save.......

Denise40

Money for your wedding for the time you had to pay everything? Did you just put it in your checking account or did you open up a special account? My fiancé wants to give so much a month and I'll do the same. Any ideas? Thanks

climbingsingle

We opened up a separate joint checking account for the wedding. 

larrygaga

I still had a student savings account with a sweet intrest rate, so we piled all da money in there. I keep everything for me (nothing) in my checking.

AprilH81

I put our wedding funds in a different account so it wouldn't get spent on non-wedding expenses.

novella1186

AprilH81 said:

I put our wedding funds in a different account so it wouldn't get spent on non-wedding expenses.

Same. Ours is in a savings account to keep it separate from our other finances, and then it's easier to track exactly what's been spent from that one account and what we have left. 

Maggie0829

My parents paid for our wedding, but when H and I want to save up for anything (like vacations, large furniture purchases, etc) we put the money in a separate account so that we don't spend it on random things like dinner or gas.

southernbelle0915

We opened a joint checking account and we both did direct deposit into it. We set that up as soon as we got engaged. 

After we were married, it just morphed into the checking account we share to pay for joint stuff for our house, groceries, eating out, etc.

theartistformerlyknownas

southernbelle0915 said:

We opened a joint checking account and we both did direct deposit into it. We set that up as soon as we got engaged. 

After we were married, it just morphed into the checking account we share to pay for joint stuff for our house, groceries, eating out, etc.

This

kat1114

I got a decent sized tax return and immediately put it in my savings. When my mom gave us her contribution, I also put that in savings. That amounted to about half our budget.

I kept everything else I saved in my regular checking so I could easily pay various wedding expenses as they popped up. My savings account is through an online bank, and I only get 6 free transfers out of the account a year.

cupcait927

We opened a separate checking account just for wedding expenses. Made it easier to keep track of what we had to spend.

Jells2dot0

I paid for both weddings myself (parents paid for a big portion of #1, but I paid for the entire thing for #2). So, I just did an auto transfer every month into my savings account and if I had any "extra" leftover at the end of the month, that also got transferred over. 

WinstonsGirl

We have a joint for bills and stuff.  We each put in a set amount each month and everything is automatically debated out of there.  Every couple/few months, we move a chunk of the extra/leftover into the savings side.  

flyingfoxes

I'm making deposits into FI's savings account.  I'm not sure if he's also making deposits in there or just paying things that pop up out of his checking account.

jenna8984

@kat1114 That seems crazy, What bank is it? I have CapitalOne360 (which was ING Direct). It's only online and has a great interest rate and I have unlimited transfers.

Same as everyone else, just transferred some each week into a separate savings account.

ElcaB

We just put ours into our individual checking accounts and didn't spend much outside wedding-related expenses. 

sarawifenow

We have a joint brokerage account that we keep money that we are saving in. It makes us much more likely to spend it and I am able to invest it where I want to. (That's part of my job).

wandajune6

lolo883 said:

We opened a joint checking account and we both did direct deposit into it. We set that up as soon as we got engaged. 

After we were married, it just morphed into the checking account we share to pay for joint stuff for our house, groceries, eating out, etc.

This

Ditto.

theartistformerlyknownas

jenna8984 said:

@kat1114 That seems crazy, What bank is it? I have CapitalOne360 (which was ING Direct). It's only online and has a great interest rate and I have unlimited transfers.

Same as everyone else, just transferred some each week into a separate savings account.

Really? Every savings account I have had said it's the law that only a certain number of transfers are allowed, otherwise it gets converted to a checking account.

kat1114

jenna8984 said:

@kat1114 That seems crazy, What bank is it? I have CapitalOne360 (which was ING Direct). It's only online and has a great interest rate and I have unlimited transfers.

Same as everyone else, just transferred some each week into a separate savings account.

It's Ally Bank. I actually don't mind the limited transfers because I figure the whole point of a savings is I shouldn't be taking money out of it.

lolo883 you're right about it being federal law that limits the number of transfers you can make at 6 (I just googled it). I never knew that. You learn something new everyday!

princessleia22

We opened a separate account at a different bank, so it wasn't linked to our regular accounts. We have a savings account at our main bank, but we tend to transfer money between accounts too often since it's so easy to do online, so we wanted an account where we couldn't do that.

DH had a part-time job at the time (while going to school) and we just put all his income into the wedding account. So, it made him feel good to know that HE paid for the wedding... even if he didn't pay for anything else during that time.

DH is now working full-time and still has that part-time job also. We decided to continue living on just my income and have all his money direct deposited to that savings account.  We figure in a year, that will be a good down payment on a house. Then we plan to continue doing it just to have liquid savings or to invest into retirement. 

It's been pretty easy to leave it alone and just kind of forget about it since at a different bank and not linked to our other accounts, so we don't see it when we log in to look at our main accounts.  And it helps to have it direct deposited, so we never see the money.  And we never really got used to having DH's income in our budget, so it doesn't hurt us to put all that money aside, but it grows quickly... and will grow quicker as he moves up in his job.  

Denise40

Thanks everyone for all the great info. I'll talk with FI when he gets back in town Monday about opening a checking account just for wedding and then use it as our joint account when we are married!

[Deleted User]

I saved the money; my fiance was in school and working unpaid internships.  It took me about 2 years to do it.

I opened an Orange Savings account that was interest bearing.  You don't make a lot of money, but it's better than nothing.  I auto deposited money there every pay check.  I purposely did it w/ a separate bank than the one I usually use, so I didn't see how much money was building and be tempted to use it for other things. 

The transfers from that account to my checking account take two business days, so you have to be on top of your payment schedule, but it also prevents you from just willy-nilly moving money from the account. 

Good luck saving!  I refused to go into debt over a wedding so we saved the money before we even got engaged.

ETF:  Words.

jenna8984

lolo883 said:

jenna8984 said:

@kat1114 That seems crazy, What bank is it? I have CapitalOne360 (which was ING Direct). It's only online and has a great interest rate and I have unlimited transfers.

Same as everyone else, just transferred some each week into a separate savings account.

Really? Every savings account I have had said it's the law that only a certain number of transfers are allowed, otherwise it gets converted to a checking account.

Oops you're right, I just looked and it is 6 a month. (I never use any, only deposits) I got confused because Kat's original post said she had 6 a year so I was like that can't be right!

[Deleted User]

I have ING / Orange / whatever it's called now.

You do NOT get unlimited electronic transfers.  By law any bank can only allow you 6 per month via electronic means.

I had to make 3 in November and after the third, I got a text saying I only had 3 more left for November.

kat1114

jenna8984 said:

lolo883 said:

jenna8984 said:

@kat1114 That seems crazy, What bank is it? I have CapitalOne360 (which was ING Direct). It's only online and has a great interest rate and I have unlimited transfers.

Same as everyone else, just transferred some each week into a separate savings account.

Really? Every savings account I have had said it's the law that only a certain number of transfers are allowed, otherwise it gets converted to a checking account.

Oops you're right, I just looked and it is 6 a month. (I never use any, only deposits) I got confused because Kat's original post said she had 6 a year so I was like that can't be right!

Whoops! I meant to write month instead of year. I really need to stop knotting first thing in the morning before coffee.

huskypuppy14

6 per year is crazy low. 6 per month makes much more sense. 

charlieyankee03

We opened up a joint account and have a set amount direct deposited in every paycheck. That will be our honeymoon fund, since my parents are paying for the wedding. 

After the wedding, it will probably be used as our adventure fund.

pinkcow13

FI already has the money. For my half, I opened up mutual funds through my job. Since my company sells mutual funds, as an employee, I can purchase without incurring any fees. I have a certain amount directly deposited each paycheck. 

amelisha

Our wedding is inexpensive enough that it can just be paid for without savings plans.

But we have savings for other stuff - it's just in my name, another savings account added to my other accounts, and FI just sends me email transfers. We've done that for our living expenses forever so it just seemed easiest to continue that way. We will look at changing that when we buy a house but it's not worth it now.

JaniV123

southernbelle0915 said:

We opened a joint checking account and we both did direct deposit into it. We set that up as soon as we got engaged. 

After we were married, it just morphed into the checking account we share to pay for joint stuff for our house, groceries, eating out, etc.

we did the same thing

wrigleyville

We opened a joint savings account and figured out how much we could contribute every month. We both had jobs that allowed us to split our direct deposit between two accounts, so we updated ours to put X amount in the savings account every month. We also had our tax refunds, "extra" paychecks (during those five-Friday months), and bonuses deposited into the savings account. Our families gave us money instead of presents for Christmas, so that went into the account too.

Once we started putting deposits on things, we put the deposits on my MasterCard that has a rewards program and then used money from the savings account to pay off the balance right away so it wouldn't accrue interest. We did the same thing after we made our final payments (paid it off immediately). 

I loved earning flight/hotel points from spending all of that money. It felt like a return on our "investment". We ended up with enough points to upgrade our honeymoon flight to First Class.