How We Use Sinking Funds In Our Budget & Bank Account

Sinking funds are great! They allow you to be able to save up for large expenses by savings a little bit every month. Today I'm sharing about sinking funds. What they are, some funds that you may want to have, and how I keep track of them in our budget!

Baby boy due May 23, 2020

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Marissa Lyda
P.O. Box 1183
Wilsonville, OR 97070
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[peaceandshine]

I hard to change all 4 tires last weekend and it cost $486. Luckily, I had $385 saved in my car maintenance sinking fund so only had to pay an extra $101. It was really helpful. I love my sinking funds.

[minnienartanaid]

I actually first learned about sinking funds a while back from you! So I started this around November last year. I have a car fund, property tax, dental, and emergency fund with Capital One! Will add more in the future but working on these for now

[bsquaredbudgets]

Our sinking funds are:
Car insurance
Household (we buy a lot in bulk so having a fund works better to even out the spending)
Clothing
Pets
Recreation
Education (homeschooling family)
Car Maintenance
Birthdays
Holidays
Gifting/donation
Property taxes
Homeowners Insurance

We used to do Hair cuts as a sinking fund but just removed it as I built up the courage to learn how to cut hair through YouTube tutorials and the frist round went surprisingly well 😄

[Megtherose]

My sinking funds are:
Christmas
Home Maintenance
Car Maintenance
Kids
Pets
Misc
Occasions
Memberships
Clothing
Entertainment
Personal Care
Vacations

[suzannecrisantiboos]

I have Bank of America for my savings account and you can actually set goals within an account. So I have all of my “short term goals” in one account and then have it split out into each “goal” (I.e. vacation, Christmas, new furniture, new TV, etc) within the account. I auto draft funds from my checking to that savings account each pay period and then assign it to the goal. Same thing as Marissa but it’s nice not to have to keep up with a spreadsheet! Mint budget app also has goals now that you can tie to a certain goal, but that would also require you to have an account for each goal. Also, make sure you’re not hitting below your minimums for those accounts and there aren’t any charges for amounts or numbers of withdrawals you take each month.

[abigailheynen]

could you do a video on how you keep Jacob updated on all this? Eg. how much he has available in his personal spending fund - do you have a regular budget meeting? if so, can you run us through what that looks like, the kinds of things you talk about, how to initiate one with your partner, etc?

[realtomchou]

Thank you for much for helping out on how to utilize funds during this pandemic!

[kendrarasch]

We’re so excited to start sinking funds! My main question is, how do you use the money in the funds? Transfer that amount from savings to checking at the end of the month? Each week?

[kateceus]

You could use the opportunity fund for college for your kiddo or retirement!

[devanwright]

We started a clothing replacement sinking fund so that when we need to replace things like shoes, coats, jeans it doesn't come from our fun money

[brittanyend]

Thank you!! This was so helpful, do you guys utilize credit cards in your monthly spending? And if so, how does that reflect on your budget? I've been trying to budget the way you do and it gets confusing when the money spent in one month ends up being in the credit card bill for the next
P.S. Congrats on the babes, he's absolutely adorable <3

[caleighann]

So when you spend money out of a sinking fund, do you just transfer it from that savings account to your checking? Does your bank has a maximum amount of times you can pull out of savings? We can only do 6 pulls a month.

[mollym]

I just started sinking funds and I keep it all together in my savings and I have an app on my android called Bucket and it shows what I have in each "sinking fund" and i can add and subtract from there

[erinnodonovan]

Hi, will your spreadsheet template work with excel online or Microsoft sheets online? Great tips! Thanks 😊

[misslennyxo]

I wanna buy your template, but (and this might be a silly question) do you start and new spread sheet every month?

[angeljuarez]

So do you transfer what you spent (if anything) monthly (once the month ends) from your savings to checking? Or do you transfer as you spend it?