Savings...Oh Savings...

[Turtlemcshell]

Dear fellow Mustachians,
         
              Me and my wife are newly weds trying to find our way with a new budget living together and i thought i would turn here for some savings advice. We are struggling to figure out exactly how to save or how exactly to label our savings. For example; my wife will most likely be needing a new car soon (used of course, but new to her) do we specifically make a spot for saving for that car or just throw money in our "savings" account? Also other things such as an emergency savings, car repairs, eventually saving for a home down the line. There seem to be so many things to save for! I would be very interested to see how some of you do this. Thanks!

[renaite]

If you're talking about multiple short-term (less than a couple years) savings, some people like having separate accounts to be able to see each balance. I like knowing exactly how much is saved toward each specific goal, but I don't like having a million accounts. This can really be more about you and your preferences than a "best way" to do it for shorter-term savings, but I prefer having most of my cash together in an account with a list of my savings categories to tell me what it's for. I use YNAB for it, but you can use a spreadsheet/word doc/back of an envelope or whatever.

So for example:

Category	Amount
Car Replacement:	$500
Home:	$2,000
Other Short-term Thing:	$200
Account Total:	$2700

And then every time I put money in my savings account, I allocate it to the categories in my chart (YNAB Budget) so I know how much was for each thing. I'm not sure I explained it very well so... let me know if I can clarify that better. :-)