Jason's Log

As part of our debt elimination goal for 2010, I’m in the process of setting up a special checking account solely for dealing with committed expenses (savings, rent, utilities, and other bills). We opened up a checking account, savings account, and a Christmas club savings account at South Carolina Federal Credit Union here in Columbia. We also setup a “Kids club” account for each of the girls, which we will use later for teaching them how to handle money. The primary mission was for the free checking account that we will use to setup all of our automatic bill payments. Using this method, I will be able to direct deposit the amount needed to always meet my bills and the automation will ensure the bills will get paid on time. With utilities that vary each month, I simply took the 12-month average and added some “buffer”. Either way, I will seed the account with enough to get started until the pay checks catchup (biweekly pay vs monthly expenses). Our current primary checking account (Wachovia) will get the rest of my paycheck to use for all other expenses like groceries, debt payments, entertainment, etc.

We are basically following the Dave Ramsey approach, just automating the “envelope system” by using a couple of checking accounts, and a few savings accounts. I’m hoping this works out.

The next step in this process is to submit the changes to the direct deposit information so my paycheck can get redirected accordingly.

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