topic Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts? in Personal Finance

Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

Itgem679 — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 20:42:08 GMT

I was reading on Reddit and a user stated that their paycheck is split 3 ways - the direct deposit puts a portion into an account for bills, one for personal spending, and one for savings. Has anyone else done this with the 50/30/20 model or did you do it differently? Is it a successful way to budget? Is it hard to get started?

Please let me know if I need to provide a better example or more info. Thanks!

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

pizzadude — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 21:03:44 GMT

@Itgem679 wrote:
I was reading on Reddit and a user stated that their paycheck is split 3 ways - the direct deposit puts a portion into an account for bills, one for personal spending, and one for savings. Has anyone else done this with the 50/30/20 model or did you do it differently? Is it a successful way to budget? Is it hard to get started?

Please let me know if I need to provide a better example or more info. Thanks!

I've used two accounts for direct deposit before, not three - but the principal is the same. It worked well for me and was a good way to divert paycheck funds automatically into a savings account, and checking / bills accounts as you described. One thing you should also verify if you haven't already is to confirm that your employer's payroll team / provider can support three direct deposit accounts.

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

tcbofade — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 21:40:27 GMT

Yep. I do the same thing.

25% of my paycheck goes to a local credit union.

10% goes to Navy Federal.

65% goes to a local bank.

As long as your employer supports it, it's doable!

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

DakotaM — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 22:35:46 GMT

I do this, but admittedly more to chase Bank bonuses. In my case, I can change/split my paycheck electronically via web portal which makes it really easy. I think it is more common that you would need to talk to someone in the payroll department, or at least send them a form so they can manually update things.

The concept is really no different than automatic recurring transfers between bank accounts.

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

Itgem679 — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 23:07:07 GMT

Thank you so much, Pizzadude!

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

Itgem679 — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 23:08:16 GMT

Thank you all for your help. I'm going to call and get my DD updated to split my check.

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

disdreamin — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 02:46:54 GMT

I don't do percentages, but I do have my paycheck split deposited into three institutions. A small amount goes to Chase, more to my credit union, and the balance to my main checking from which bills are paid and money is transfered to savings. It works out although now with the ability to transfer money between banks electronically it really isn't as useful as it used to be. My setting this up predated my ability to do electronic transfers to and from all of these institutions.

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

Moneyklutz — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 03:18:09 GMT

Been doing this for years. Chase for the free checking requirement and Alliant CU to get the full 2.5% on my CC and the rest into Ally which is my main hub.

Currently I portion my paycheck between them all to reflect average spend on the Chase and Alliant cards and the rest dumps into Ally. After I set it up with payroll at work it lessened the ACH transfers to cover the monthly PIF amounts on each card. If another institution I bank with ever requires a DD/ACH transfer to save a dime or two, I'd split it even further. Once it's all set up you'll love it!

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

tcbofade — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 10:39:59 GMT

@disdreamin wrote:
I don't do percentages, but I do have my paycheck split deposited into three institutions....

In my case, it's employer driven.

Former employer required dollar amount divisions. I sent X dollars to CU, X dollars to NFCU, and the balance to the local bank.

New employer requires percentages. I'll send X% to CU, X% to NFCU, and the balance to the local bank.

Whatever the method, there is way!

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

iced — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 15:16:40 GMT

@Itgem679 wrote:
I was reading on Reddit and a user stated that their paycheck is split 3 ways - the direct deposit puts a portion into an account for bills, one for personal spending, and one for savings. Has anyone else done this with the 50/30/20 model or did you do it differently? Is it a successful way to budget? Is it hard to get started?

Please let me know if I need to provide a better example or more info. Thanks!

I used to do a 2-way split where I would put $X each pay period into a savings and the remainder into checking. However, I stopped doing this about 2-3 years ago.

It's easy to get started provided your employer has a self-service portal for adjusting direct deposits. Just log in and set it up. For those who struggle to budget or have a set goal they're moving towards in savings, it's a perfectly viable way to go about things.

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

Duke_Nukem — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 16:47:59 GMT

@DakotaM wrote:
I do this, but admittedly more to chase Bank bonuses. In my case, I can change/split my paycheck electronically via web portal which makes it really easy. I think it is more common that you would need to talk to someone in the payroll department, or at least send them a form so they can manually update things.
The concept is really no different than automatic recurring transfers between bank accounts.

I used to do the same since my employer's portal allowed splitting my paycheck to at least 4 accounts (have no idea what their max is). I stopped moving stuff around when I was talking to the HR admin about changing my 401k %, and she mentioned that even though I submit through the portal they have to manually enter the data once they receive the notice from the portal. Whoopsie, sorry about that!

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

NoMoreE46 — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 18:43:16 GMT

My employer offers up to four I think.

I DD to three different banks.

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

SouthJamaica — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 04:03:09 GMT

@Itgem679 wrote:
I was reading on Reddit and a user stated that their paycheck is split 3 ways - the direct deposit puts a portion into an account for bills, one for personal spending, and one for savings. Has anyone else done this with the 50/30/20 model or did you do it differently? Is it a successful way to budget? Is it hard to get started?

Please let me know if I need to provide a better example or more info. Thanks!

I think it's great to be able to split your direct deposit into 3 different accounts, if you have 3 different accounts.

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

Curious_George2 — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 07:39:27 GMT

I DD into five different accounts. Each one has its purpose.

Small, fixed amount to Navy because they highly value DD.

Fixed amount to SoFi to support relatives. SoFi is the best I've found for pushing recurring transfers to another individual's account.

Fixed amount to a Chase checking account that I solely use to pay a student loan. The lender pulls auto payments. That makes me nervous, so I use a dedicated checking account for it. That way, they can't ever "accidentally" take more that they should.

Some to a local CU where I have a Kasasa checking account that earns 2% cashback on debit spend. Nice to get rewards at those places that don't accept credit cards.

Balance goes to my main checking account.

My employer uses one of the big payroll services and they have a good web portal. Setting up DD and shifting things around is easy-peasy. Apparently this existed for years before I knew about it. Once I learned I didn't need to pester HR for this, I went buck wild! 😂

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 08:45:06 GMT

In my past, I did have an employer that allowed four direct deposits!

Did not use that many but it was an option. Note, employer driven.

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

calyx — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 15:36:23 GMT

I used to split into 4, but our new overlords have a max 3 way split.

Currently it's: Savings, Doggie HSA, CU Checking.
From Savings do an auto-transfer into my formerly used 4th (BigBank Checking) account.

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

Revelate — Sat, 19 Nov 2022 13:08:42 GMT

@iced wrote:
@Itgem679 wrote:
I was reading on Reddit and a user stated that their paycheck is split 3 ways - the direct deposit puts a portion into an account for bills, one for personal spending, and one for savings. Has anyone else done this with the 50/30/20 model or did you do it differently? Is it a successful way to budget? Is it hard to get started?

Please let me know if I need to provide a better example or more info. Thanks!
I used to do a 2-way split where I would put $X each pay period into a savings and the remainder into checking. However, I stopped doing this about 2-3 years ago.

It's easy to get started provided your employer has a self-service portal for adjusting direct deposits. Just log in and set it up. For those who struggle to budget or have a set goal they're moving towards in savings, it's a perfectly viable way to go about things.

Why did you stop senor?

I never did this, I've always run my financial life through one FI (first BOFA now Chase for the past nearly 12 years); I like having the centralized clearing house where I can just look at one set of statements to really see what's going on and to allocate money as needed depending on my financial requirements at the time... admittedly the creation of tools like Mint or the Personal Capital that I use really helped in terms of aggregating even my credit cards for transaction types for better analysis, but I never really figured out different checking/savings accounts for different use cases unless the APR was markedly different like the 1K I still leave sitting in DCU's account and may wind up being there for decades at this rate unless T-bills get above 5%.

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

tnhomestead — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 04:18:42 GMT

4 accounts for me. 1 is for bills, 1 is for weekly living expenses and the other 2 pay off a loan each. Works good for me.

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

disdreamin — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 15:57:07 GMT

What was mentioned upthread about using one FI made me think - my DD are spread over three institutions. Chase for car payment/car savings, initially set up to claim a $300 bonus for new account with DD. Another chunk is DD to my CU which is then split into four different accounts: Travel savings, Holiday savings, a Repair and Replace fund, and a money market savings account. The remainder goes to my primary FI, but a portion of that is then is automatically transferred into two savings accounts earnmarked for for property taxes and college expenses.

In the end I have about a dozen different accounts. I guess it's time to look into a simpler way of accomplishing all this, yikes.

Re: Does anyone direct deposit into 3 accounts?

markbeiser — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 04:50:35 GMT

I have a 3 way split, fixed amount from each paycheck pretax into my HSA, post tax 10% to my brokerage account(mostly goes into my Roth IRA), rest to my checking.
The HSA is one that lets me invest the funds in it, so I don't actually use it to pay medical expenses since the funds going in are pre-tax, and after age 62.5 I can pull funds out of it tax free, so I am using it as a completely tax free retirement investment account(EDIT: To pay for medical insurance and expenses when I retire).