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free idea: bank account partitioning

October 28th, 2009 • posts i've written

Disk partitioning is the act or practice of dividing the storage space of a hard disk drive into separate data areas known as partitions.

Partitions are a helpful way to separate one group of data from another group of data, for example: operating system files from user files (because we know how your sister likes to delete files at will).

And with partitions, you can also set the maximum size of a partition, or the maximum amount of data that will fit in one storage space.

Why don’t bank accounts have something akin to partitions?

After all, money is a lot like data. Well, the way we think about money… Typically when we’re saving money, clumps of that cash represent physical things for us, like a home in Florida and tall black socks to retire in, or a new guitar, or a rent payment. Clumps of data represent somewhat physical things to us, too; like a bad ass song by Abba or a paper on Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, for example.

I find myself wishing I could partition my bank account for things I’m saving up to buy and things I know I need to put money away for every month, like rent. I could set the size of those partitions and any overflow would fall into a standard open partition inside my checking account. I could even set a partition that represents my monthly debit card budget and once I’ve depleted that partition, I’m tapped until I rearrange my data, err my money.

I know what you’re going to say… there’s already an app for this – it’s called a checkbook. But when was the last time you saw a twenty year old filling out their check book ledger? Well, wait, when was the last time you saw a twenty year old writing a check for anything besides rent and utilities?

Hopefully someone is reading this and either 1) running away with the idea to give to a bank or 2) crafting a brilliant comment to completely negate the whole idea.

Choose your own adventure.

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7 Responses (add your comment)

Justin Kownacki October 28, 2009
at 10:05 pm

Actually, PNC Bank already has something like this called Virtual Wallet. I don’t use it, but I know some people who swear by it. It’s basically a sliding scale that divides your bank account into segments, based on the preferences you’ve set. If it’s popular, I presume other banks will adopt something similar.
Alina October 29, 2009
at 10:16 am

jap. great. and what do you think about a airbag – if you radically empty one of them.
Johnny June 30, 2010
at 11:18 pm

want. I’ve had the same idea. At the same time, if banks could give you your transaction history through an encrypted XML feed, this wouldn’t be too hard to implement client-side without the bank actually having to get off their asses.
Dionis September 22, 2010
at 2:35 pm

I actually just searched the internet for “partition your checking account.” I’m trying to save for several things, and this would make it so easy!
I can’t believe 1)you wrote so eloquently about this, and 2)the major banks don’t give us that option!
Texaus007 March 10, 2011
at 5:19 pm

Well put. I come from the IT world were partitioning is common, with regards to data. I have a lot a sinking funds that I’m putting money towards; car, furniture, home A/C system, Christmas, new carpet, etc… I find it hard to keep track of what each dollar is actually allocated towards when it’s just lumped together in my savings account. I’ve heard of people opening up different savings accounts with ING and using each account for a different purpose. This still seems more complicated than having one account that you could partition.
Greg September 8, 2011
at 8:11 am

I’ve been looking for something like this for years. Glad I finally found others with the same idea. Why aren’t bank accounts in general more intelligent? Why can’t I go online and program my accounts so that every paycheck that gets deposited is allocated to different accounts/partitions automatically? It’s simple really. Budgeting for the 21st century. What’s a check registry!?