How Do You Manage Your Savings Accounts?

Mugsy on 19/07/2025 - 19:23
Last edited 19/07/2025 - 20:50

Wife and I had an interesting discussion recently. I helped her open up new Macquarie transaction and HISA accounts and I suggested she get her pay deposited into the HISA so that it's earning her interest. She said she still plans on using her legacy NAB Classic account (not a Citibank replacement one so gets charged international transaction fees) to get paid into as she is just use to using it to live out of and wants to grow the NAB balance.

I've always maximised my interest earning/saving potential by having my pay go into my PPOR offset/s or highest interest HISA depending on what point in life I'm at. As long as the balance increases in the long run by my estimated amount, I know I'm on track. So it's quite perplexing for me when I see peeps use multiple buckets that don't maximise savings.

Curious to see how people manage their high interest savings accounts if they have one.

Poll Options

  • 19
    Everything in one HISA. Highest interest rate I can get with acceptable hoops.
  • 21
    Multiple HISAs. Maxed balance in highest interest option and moved to next best one.
  • 25
    Multiple HISAs. Not necessarily highest interest rates. Just how I like to organise things.
  • 35
    Don't use HISAs. Money in offset/s.
  • 4
    Don't use HISAs. Money in other investments.
  • 10
    Don't have savings. Living week to week is a struggle already.
  • 15
    Single HISA. But my income doesn't go in there directly.
Financial Bank Account Savings Account

Comments

  • mooseca on 19/07/2025 - 19:29
    +2

    I have a few different ones in ubank. One for holidays, tools and home stuff. They all combine to get interest and I can dip in to them when needed. Main account is with Macquarie.

    • Mugsy on 19/07/2025 - 19:42

      I had a similar setup until ubank dropped their rate to 4.6%.

      Macquarie savings as a float because it was flexible with direct debits and ubank for growing savings and withdrawing out of to top up the float.

      I am still on Macquarie's intro rate so i have moved everything back there for now. Got two more months to see how the HISA landscape changes.

      • mooseca on 19/07/2025 - 19:59

        What's Macquarie's intro one? I guess I can't get it anyway so ubank will do for now. It's not considerable amounts of money but it all helps.

        • Mugsy on 19/07/2025 - 20:10
          +1

          4.85%… it's what you get for 4 months when first creating their savings account before it drops to currently 4.5%

    • Lastchancetosee on 20/07/2025 - 08:51

      That’s the same set-up as at Bank Australia.

  • [Deactivated] on 19/07/2025 - 19:47
    -1

    What is HISA?

    • Mugsy on 19/07/2025 - 19:49
      -1

      High interest savings account

      • holdenmg on 19/07/2025 - 19:56
        +1

        Hi, SA!

    • joka on 20/07/2025 - 07:23
      +2

      Home Improvements and Structural Alterations

    • cashless on 20/07/2025 - 14:48

      Having income squirrelled away

  • trustnoone on 19/07/2025 - 19:58

    I'm confused, isn't there an option like your wife? 1 or multiple HISA plus secondary saving account?
    At least thats what I do, mostly because my HISA requires you to put money in and not take it out to get the full interest. But also because I don't want my bank cards/daily baking connected to my HISA, so the only payments go in, any payments go out I notice it straight away as it should never go out anywhere or be used anywhere. I mostly do this for tiny bit of security.

    • Mugsy on 19/07/2025 - 20:15

      If by 'secondary saving account' you mean a transaction account, that's outside the scope of the question. If it was, I'd be boring you all with my 10 or so debit cards. I only use 2 of them daily, a third for bank@post cash deposits, and the rest sit there waiting to be used on international holidays or were simply provided as part of a compulsory transaction account attached to a HISA.

      • trustnoone on 19/07/2025 - 20:33

        Oh maybe I'm misunderstanding

        She said she still plans on using her legacy NAB Classic account … … to get paid into as she is just use to using it to live out of and wants to grow the NAB balance.

        I've always maximised my interest earning/saving potential by having my pay go into my PPOR offset/s or highest interest HISA …. ….So it's quite perplexing for me when I see peeps use multiple buckets that don't maximise savings.

        I thought your question was because your wife is using a transaction account instead of maximizing by having pay go directly to HISA and you were wondering why someone would do that.
        In that case, everything in 1 HISA for me, because I don't have much money to bother sharing it in another lol.

        • Mugsy on 19/07/2025 - 20:48

          Nah, I'm just curious in how the HISAs are used.

          In her case, she used the HISA to store $20k (remaining balance following her townhouse sale and our home loan being 100% offset). And that's all she uses it for… doesn't put money in, doesn't take money out.

          So I probably need to add an option… "1 HISA, but I don't put all my income in there"

  • SBOB on 19/07/2025 - 19:59
    +2

    Curious to see how people manage their high interest savings accounts if they have one.

    One per wife

  • Far Cough on 19/07/2025 - 20:43

    is your wife my gf?

  • Duckie2hh on 19/07/2025 - 21:01
    +1

    Spend less than you earn.

  • onetwothreefour on 19/07/2025 - 21:03
    +3

    You don't have joint accounts with your wife?

  • soan papdi on 19/07/2025 - 21:14
    +1

    She said she still plans on using her legacy NAB Classic account to get paid into as she is just use to using it to live out of and wants to grow the NAB balance.

    She DGAF about interest rates, just wants a simple life where all money enters and exits the same bank account. Did you get her consent before creating the HISA in her name?

    • payless69 on 20/07/2025 - 15:59
      +2

      Maybe this is his main question: Is it time to trade her in?

  • Luminary on 19/07/2025 - 21:36
    +1

    We have a chunk of our savings in an offset that fully offsets the mortgage and the excess is in HISAs.

  • try2bhelpful on 19/07/2025 - 22:11

    At the moment most of the money is in UBank and I do the dance of swapping money between my Nab accounts and my UBank, mainly to allow for the $500 deposit and to pay my NAB credit card. I will look at ING and MacQuarie now that Ubank is stuffing around.

    • Mugsy on 19/07/2025 - 23:18
      +1

      I'm half way through my Macquarie intro rate period so when ubank dropped their rate, I moved everything back to Macquarie. Once the intro rate ends, I'll decide what other HISA I might open for a higher rate. ME Bank gives the same rate atm so no point starting an account with them in the event they drop their rates likes ubank just did. Plus I'd need to be hands on a bit more with ME Bank (automating payments = lost interest) which at that point, do I just bite the bullet and open an ING SM account instead? Those are the questions for future me in 2 months time.

      I enjoy banking with macquarie… good app, best authenticator set up of all banks IMHO, rebated ATM withdrawals, and one can transact out of the savings account for direct debits. I use with with HSBC everyday global as the latter has 2% cashback on sub $100 card taps (great for offsetting surcharges) and for the eftpos support for things like Medicare rebates. I kept my NAB classic citi-replacement card for mobile cheque deposits and bank@post support.

      Mac is also a great HISA for purely no hoops banking. Was a great option for my wife to park her $20k excess funds after fully offsetting our house loan… when I asked her if she wanted me to start up a HISA for her as it would earn her almost $100/mth, she didn't believe me that she'd get that much for just leaving money in the bank… I love her to bits but she's not very well versed with finance. Anyway, she keeps the $20k separate to her pay account to ensure she doesn't touch it. Her pay account is currently drawn down to nil between pay days as she's buying furniture for the new house. I personally don't think we (as two people and a dog) need that much furniture but she wants to decorate the house. As they say, happy wife, happy life… so I let her decorate as she please and I'll save my pay for bills, our living expenses and holidays which I value more.

      I'm lucky she suggested we each manage our own finances after the house loan was fully offset.

      • surfingedge on 20/07/2025 - 07:19
        +1

        Banks love her as they are making almost $100 a month from her money.

        Although she personally would likely have only got $60 to $70 of that after tax, even at last year's higher rates.

        Finances should really be discussed before marriage, but I guess not always easy or possible for some people.

        • Mugsy on 20/07/2025 - 08:07

          Situations change too.

          Before marriage i had two properties rented out and we were living in her townhouse which was a great arrangement as i earn double what she does so overall we were better off. We agreed to keep our finances separate at the time. Which i knew wouldn't be feasible in the long run but we'd cross that bridge when we got to it.

          After marriage we agreed to build a house together. I would dispose of my properties first to fund the build and her townhouse would be sold after we moved to plug the massive debt that we took on. Luck so has it that property values rose so much, we're now fully offset.

          So we don't touch the offset account and have gone back to each managing our separate savings. Of course, she doesn’t do retirement planning properly so i need to factor in having enough funds for two people when we retire.

          • bbinc on 20/07/2025 - 10:51

            @Mugsy: You might find Scott Pape’s Barefoot Investor book helpful. He concentrates on financial strategies for couples. Just a thought.

            • Mugsy on 20/07/2025 - 11:01

              @bbinc: Yeah, now that i am not focused on managing my finances around a construction project and no longer single, i probably need to refresh my finance knowledge a bit from the point of view of a couple.

              The challenge will be how much she wants to deal with it. Last night she mentioned she was concerned about retirement but she doesn’t want to work out a target to strive for with super or assets in order to fund retirement. That's not exactly solving the problem now is it.

              • bbinc on 20/07/2025 - 12:44
                +1

                @Mugsy: I think Scott’s book might help then … most libraries have it - it’s based around how to talk about the issues rather than the complicated stuff

                • Mugsy on 20/07/2025 - 13:16

                  @bbinc: Cheers bud. Will probably buy myself a copy so I can refer back to it and do mark ups as I please.

                  At the very least, it'll go well on my 3 shelves worth of personal finance and self help books that I've had for 20yrs - lol. Probably need to read some of them again after BFI.

  • Marty156 on 20/07/2025 - 08:09
    +1

    Nothing goes in, all comes out at a later stage of life.
    Its what you managed to put in while earning that counts!

  • Benno007 on 20/07/2025 - 10:55
    -1

    multiple maxed out HISA + one offset account covering my mortgage. Waiting for a good buying opportunity 😅

  • BargainHunterDon on 21/07/2025 - 09:23

    Currently using the Mac account as my main HISA - can't complain but will have to think again once the rate drops to 4.5%.

    I've also been using Earnr for the last year or so, an Aus based savings platform that pays 6.00% on the first 50k and has some decent notice accounts for amounts above that. Easy to use and no honeymoon period, not gonna replace a daily bank account but for savings it's been awesome.

  • SlickMick on 21/07/2025 - 11:13

    I'm surprised so many leave money sitting in bank accounts not offsetting a loan.
    If I ever paid off PPOR, and my concessional super contributions were maxed out, I'd get an investment loan with an offset (if I didn't already have one).
    Mucking around with HISA just to try to keep money from losing value, but having to pay tax on the interest, seems a really unproductive use of funds and effort.

    I know some people have a desire to be debt free, but it's an unnecessary restriction imo.

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