I have a budget. So far, I've found that the easiest way to know when I've spent my alloted amount is to simply withdraw my money in cash and keep it in separate slots in a small expanding file. While it is a great system, one of the drawbacks is carrying a large sum of cash. I propose an account at the bank wherein the depositor could select up to ten 'funds' for withdrawing from. #1 mortgage, #2 groceries, etc. Any money coming into the account could be distributed to the funds either by set amount or percentage. The beauty is in the debit card system. When making a purchase, let's say groceries, the user would swipe the card, enter his PIN, then enter '2' for 'groceries' fund. The terminal would then debit the purchase, and tell the owner how much funding is left for groceries.

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-- wittyhoosier, Oct 04 2007

Split accounts Account_20Split-Balancing
[wittyhoosier, Oct 04 2007]

The account part of it is nice but the card part would require POS systems to be modified. What you could do is make a card that can be swiped both ways up on both sides, I'm not sure if you could do a double-sided smart card though. This would allow you to access 4 accounts. You wouldn't need a swipey for your mortgage and stuff like that, you could set which account the money gets drawn from online, simply numbered 1-4 for your swipeys.

Hmm, My old company has a card writing machine, I'm going to make one of these to replace all my other cards. My current card is plain white with "CARD" written on it.
-- marklar, Oct 04 2007


so when the account is empty, you get rejected at the cash register? i do like the concept and i'm giving you a bun for trying to find a practical application for this, but it has kinks in it yet. nice thing about the expandinf file, you can see exactly how much you have left. no guess work. +
-- k_sra, Oct 04 2007



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