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Huh, that's interesting. I never thought about having more than a savings asccount and a checking account per household.

How do you manage them, mediagirl? Do you manually allocate a set percentage or dollar amount to the accounts monthly?

@mediagirl: I think this could work for us. My husband has a habit of being an impulse shopper for big ticket items (like his recent 3D printer purchase). I think if he had an account where he saved an amount monthly and couldn't get it until he met that, it might slow him down a bit.

We have several credit union accounts. I only have multiples because of interest rates. So one guarantees 6% interest on the first 1,000 dollars. Another gives 4% on 25 k. Research credit unions and see what kind of high interest accounts you can find.

Maybe some additional items:
- Vet bills
- Car tax

@T.H.O.U.: As you know I'm new to YNAB so I'm not sure exactly how this will play out. However, these were my "sinking funds" when I was doing pen and paper and the Dave Ramsey methodology.

So far I have:
Emergency Fund
Car maintenance and Repairs
Christmas
Birthdays/other gifts
Car Insurance
Renter's Insurance
Kids visits (paying each year for plane tickets, etc. for my stepkids)
Pharmacy/Prescriptions
Clothes/Shoes/Dry-cleaning
Baby (diapers, wipes, clothes, other needs)
"Stuff you'll forget in the first year of YNAB" (tip I picked up by watching one of their videos yesterday)

I should also have a pet category, car taxes, etc. But I'm already overwhelmed with categories so that's it for now.

I also have "Savings Goals" in mind: New Car, Furniture, New Computer, Down payment on a house. Sometimes I am confused as to what should be a "rainy day" and what should be "savings." But I don't think it really matters as long as it makes sense to me and I set priorities.

I should also have a Pet category, car taxes, etc. But I'm already overwhelmed with categories so that's it for now.

@T.H.O.U.:

We have two sections (so two different master categories: 1) Yearly expenses and 2) Wants)

Yearly Expenses:
- Property Tax
- Homeowner's Insurance
- AAA Car Insurance

Wants:
- Holidays
- Experience Fund
- Electronics (we're saving up for a laptop)
- Family photoshoot

The reason I divided it up this way is because the Yearly Expenses are stuff that WILL come up and we will have to pay. The Wants are just "nice to have" so if some months we don't have extra money left over in our budget I just don't even budget for those categories.

I always keep the Yearly Expenses section budgeted so that I don't have to deal with unexpected, large bills and the money will just be sitting there and available when I need it. It rolls over each month in YNAB and just accumulates.

For the "Wants" section, once we meet our goal of whatever we've been saving up for, I just "hide" that category so I don't have to see it anymore. For example, we already paid for our family photoshoot that we've been saving for so that category has since been hidden. Holidays, Electronics, and Experience Fund are sections that will probably never be hidden since I'm sure we'll always want something from there... I tried to make them a little broader so I'm not constantly having to hide categories.

@T.H.O.U.: here is a screen shot of my rainy day funds. Things will pop up that you forgot about so I just added as things came up. So like for car registration I just took the total for our two cars and divide by 12 and add that amount to the budget each month. The amounts roll over each month so you'll see the total amount grow over the months. Some of my budgets like car repair, I've decided I want to get up to $1000 in there so I plan to just add to that budget until it gets to $1000 then stop. So if one of our cars needs repairs there's already money budgeted for it.

@Mrs. High Heels: I like how you have a "wants" section. I think I'll have to add that to mine. Yours looks so organized. I need to organize mine a little better.

@mrskc: yesterday i broke a few things out even further... i originally had a bunch of everyday expenses lumped into one, but i broke it out so i have "everyday expenses" (mandatory), and "everyday luxuries"...

i decided to do it this way because when i'm budgeting money i DO have, i know to budget the mandatory items first... or if we're tight on some months, i can choose not allot any money at all for some items under "everyday luxuries"

I had to look up "ynab"!

We use Capital One (previously ING), and are trying something new this year by having our savings broken into 3 different accounts. We have a "Master" savings account which we try not to touch, a "Dog" savings for our dog (in case of future expenses as she gets older). And then at the beginning of the year, I moved a chunk, I think around $3,500 into a separate savings account bookmarked for "Expenses". And then I automatically have $200 transferred on a monthly basis from our Master account into our Expenses account. The Expenses account is where we pull from for random expenses like car insurance, auto repair, HOA, and other unexpected expenses, etc.

It's worked out pretty well so far!

@Mrs. High Heels: I signed up for all the classes knowing I wouldn't be able to view them "live" because I heard that would just send me a link. Your method would have saved me from a million emails though "Thank you for registering for X class!" "Sorry we missed you for X class!" x6!!