My bank has a Christmas Club savings account.
"What is a Christmas Club savings account?" you ask.
Why, I will be happy to tell you.
A Christmas Club savings account is a special savings account with a higher interest rate than a regular savings account. It is used solely to save "Christmas money" and the money I deposit can only be withdrawn in November. In fact, I don't even choose when to withdraw it; my bank automatically transfers the amount into my checking account. Or maybe they send me a check for the amount. I can never remember which one.
And the best part is I have automatic withdrawals come from my checking account to the Christmas Club account every week. I have my account set up to automatically transfer $10 to my Christmas Club account on Mondays. I never miss $10 a week, and by the end of the year I'll have $520 saved for Christmas, without even trying! Darren and I also make additional deposits whenever we have some extra money. We already have quite a balance in the Christmas Club account, and even if we don't use it all for gifts it's nice to have a little extra money that time of year.
What I like most about the Christmas Club account is that I cannot withdraw the money. If I just tried to set some aside for Christmas in my regular savings account I would probably spend it on other things. That's what happens when I keep everything in one place. I need it all separated. We actually have two checking accounts and four savings accounts. It keeps me organized.
You might wonder what one would do with six different bank accounts. Well, it is a long a complicated story. But here's the short of it:
- Checking account #1: Our regular checking account.
- Checking account #2: Darren's checking account from before we got married, which we have never closed.
- Savings account #1: Darren's savings account from before we got married, which we have never closed.
- Savings account #2: Our regular savings account.
- Savings account #3: Our "Emergency Fund" savings account, where we keep enough money to live on for three months without jobs.
- Savings account #4: Our Christmas Club Savings Account.
See, if our "emergency funds" and our Christmas funds and our regular savings were all mixed together it would be SO MUCH more work to figure out what money was for what purpose. So really I'm saving myself time by having four different savings accounts.
Really.
So the moral of the post is that it's impossible to keep your money straight without seventeen accounts.
Wait, no it's not.
It's that if you don't already have a Christmas Club account, you should get one. If your bank doesn't offer that, you should switch to mine.
For real.
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