9 Savings Accounts With Buckets That Make it Easy to Save for Goals, Like an Emergency Fund or Travel (2024)

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• Saving for separate goals helps you track your progress and manage your money.
• You can save for different objectives with high-yield savings accounts.
• Some of these accounts may also offer high interest rates and low minimum opening deposits.

Saving for different expenses can make it easier to manage your money than keeping all your savings in the same place. There are several savings accounts that let you save for separate goals and name each of them, like "Emergency Fund" or "Home Repairs."

Take a look at these savings accounts and consider which one is the best fit. Many of them are also high-yield savings accounts so you can earn a great interest rate while you budget.

Savings accounts with buckets that make it easy to save for goals

1. Ally Savings Account

2. Betterment Cash Reserve Account

3. Capital One 360 Performance Savings

4. Milli Savings Account

5. Navy Federal Credit Union Share Savings Account

Note: This is the only account on our list that doesn't let you set up separate goals in one account. You'll have to create multiple savings accounts and name each one. But because Navy Federal doesn't charge monthly bank maintenance fees, there isn't really a downside to doing it this way.

6. NBKC Everything Account

7. ONE Account

8. Sallie Mae SmartyPig Account

9. SoFi Checking and Savings Account

How many savings accounts should I have?

There is no limit to how many savings accounts you can have. When deciding how many savings accounts you want, you'll want to balance your savings goals with how many accounts you can easily keep track of. Savings accounts with buckets can help cut down on the number of savings accounts you need by letting you organize money for your savings goals without needing to open extra accounts.

Understanding savings goals

Savings goals are individual objectives that you put your extra money toward. They can vary greatly from emergency funds to down payments to college savings plans, and they help give purpose to your saving. They also help you be prepared for the future, making sure you aren't taken by surprise.

What are some of the advantages of saving for separate goals?

So, why not just keep all your savings in one account and withdraw money when you need it? You can do this, but there are some perks to having separate pots for each savings goal:

• Easily track your progress. With one savings account, you may see that you have $15,000 in savings. But with separate goals, you can see that you have $10,000 in an emergency fund, $3,000 saved for a car, and $2,000 set aside for that big trip next month. If you need $5,000 to buy a car and $3,000 for the trip, you now have a better understanding of how much more you need to save.
• Save more. Once you have a better idea of how close you are to reaching each savings goal, you may feel motivated to save more so you can reach a certain dollar amount. Transfer some money from checking, or set recurring automatic transfers to go toward goals.
• Reduce temptation. Keeping all your savings in the same place makes it easy to misspend money. For example, maybe you were planning to use your savings to buy a car and go on a big trip next month. You go on vacation, but when you return, you realize you don't have enough money left over to buy the car. Setting separate goals can help you remember not to touch the money you want to put toward the car.

All of these savings accounts are useful tools for saving for different goals. Take a look at their other features — savings interest rates, minimum opening deposits, options for depositing money — to decide which one is right for you.

Types of savings goals

Here are some savings goals you might need to save for:

• Emergency fund
• Holiday budget
• Travel
• Home repairs
• Down payment on a house
• Buying a car
• A semester's tuition
• Pet expenses
• Wedding
• Retirement

Savings goals vary greatly by how much you need to save and how long you have to save for them. Savings accounts with buckets are good for smaller savings goals that you don't have a definitive timeframe for, such as emergency funds or home repairs. If you know when you'll need to access your funds, you might consider CDs, which tend to give higher, fixed interest rates at the cost of accessibility.

For longer-term savings goals, such as retirement, you'll probably be better off investing your money. You'll earn more money in the long run by using low-risk investment accounts or retirement plans instead of savings accounts.

Setting strong savings goals

Learning how to set savings goals well can help you be prepared for the future. For example, if you're saving for your child's college, you can build a strong savings goal by researching how much college is likely to cost, figuring out how much of each paycheck you can commit to saving, and finding which type of account will best help you earn the amount you need while planning how to budget. Comparatively, you'll build a weaker savings goal if you just put a small amount of money in a general savings account each month without putting any research into whether that will be enough.

Savings accounts with buckets help you set strong savings goals and overcome savings goal challenges by letting you see exactly how much money you have put toward your specific goal at any time.

Strategies to achieve savings goals

One easy strategy to help you achieve savings goals is to automate your savings. Automating savings for goals means that you won't have to manually transfer money toward each of your savings goals every paycheck, ensuring that you won't accidentally forget and spend money you had earmarked for a long-term goal. Some savings accounts with buckets will let you set up automatic transfers into specific buckets; if that's a perk you're interested in using, make sure that the bank or credit union you're interested in offers it before you commit.

Another strategy is to create a savings plan that gels well with the savings goals you're interested in. For example, the 50/30/20 rule might be useful to you if you have a regular paycheck and not a lot of debt. But if you work freelance, live in an area with a high cost of living, or want to save more than 20% of your paycheck toward savings goals, then you might want to pick another budgeting plan or modify the rule to better fit your needs.

A savings account with buckets can be a great tool for growing savings goals. But there are other useful tools you can use alongside savings accounts with buckets to best maximize your goals.

Budgeting apps are one of the best tools for savings goals and can be a great companion to savings accounts with buckets. While buckets can help you keep track of any savings goals that make sense to keep in a savings account, budgeting apps can help you keep track of savings goals that make more sense in other types of accounts.

If you have the budget for it, an in-person or online financial advisor can also help you plan for more major savings goals that you want to invest toward. Financial advisors can be real people with financial certifications, or they can be robo-advisors that use algorithms to help you with investing.

Savings account with buckets FAQs