Organizing Accounts

I am not the most organized person in the world but I’d like to think I try my very best to get organized at certain things. So when I started with this financial independence objective this year, I had to get organized. Or else, how would I be able to keep track of things? How would I make it easier to keep track of things?

So I started out with organizing the household cash flow, hence, organizing the bank accounts. In a span of a month, I sure had a few hits and misses. I opened 9 accounts (not all in one bank) and closed out 2 (BDO). You may think I’m crazy about opening all these bank accounts. Yet I have to say it’s nice that I’ve figured it all out alone because it seems I am on the right track. Asus. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who thought about opening this wild number of accounts! Haha. You should read Jordan here. It was just recently that I found Jordan’s site and that we had something in common. I’m now subscribed to her and can relate to most of her posts. Most of all, like her, I really want to make a big change. So yeah, I or we currently have 7 accounts though not necessarily in Jordan’s order. 

Savings Accounts:

• 1 BPI Easy Saver (savings)
• 1 BPI Direct Savings (insurance, groceries due to 1% rebate if you use the atm card)
• 1 Chinabank Savings passbook

Savings Accounts (that more or less work like a checking account due to the need for visa debitcards sans the checkbook):

• 1 EastWest atm as Family Checking account (bills, utilities, etc)
• 1 EastWest atm for Tuition
• 1 myEprepaid card for Gas
• 1 EastWest atm for the husband

Jordan mentioned I should get my (wife’s) own account but I prefer to use the envelope system as my responsibilities involve cash payments including my allowance. I use BPI direct savings card for groceries due to the 1% rebate you can get by end of the year.  Also, why EastWest Savings? Because they only ask for a minimum of P100 initial deposit and monthly maintaining balance; and it can already earn .250% interest per annum. Plus, you get a Visa debitcard (that left me with  no choice but to close the 2 previous BDO accounts I opened. The maintaining balance is 2K and the debitcard is just plain debitcard. It's just PIN-based which defeats the purpose of flexibility.) I would love to try their basic checking account but they require 6 months’ worth of savings before getting one. So I’ll wait.

Consequently, I was able to organize my wallet so that when I’m at the grocery, I won’t have to go looking from pocket to pocket for the SM Advantage card, etc. They’re just all in one pocket with the BPI card intended for groceries. Same thing for gas purchases; the Petron card and myEprepaid card are together in one pick. Hihi.

How about you? How are you doing in this journey to financial independence? ;)