How We Use Family Sinking Funds

This is how we use family sinking funds as a family to support our shared values and build towards our dreams.

I love sinking funds and have really had them since I was a kid and had 5 different piggybanks with each their specific purpose. So I am thrilled to have (over time) talked my partner into creating shared sinking funds. Aside from our shared budget account where our regular expenses are taken from, which we have had for longer.

We have had quite a few money talks, uncovering our shared and individual values. It’s resulted in a number of sinking funds to match our current goals. I’ve learnt that if I/we don’t assign the money a purpose, they are more easily just thrown away on unnecessary expenses. Like clothes I don’t really need or convenience shopping.

Here are our Family Sinking Funds

We are a couple with a lot of goals – both short and long term. Some of these are sinking funds for running costs and some are savings for one-off expenses.

Let’s get into a rundown of which categories/sinking funds we have and why!

House (savings). We are saving for buying a home at some point. (Slowly, as we recently moved into a new rental)
Travels (sinking). We want to travel so setting aside money for that consistently makes sense to us.
Baby expenses (sinking). Having a child costs money and we’ve created a “kiddo account” to help us manage these costs. We wanted to make sure that we always had the money to get what we need there, and having a sinking fund for diapers, clothes, equipment, toys, etc. really made us more at ease about it.
Home upgrades (sinking). Getting new curtains, furniture, replacing items, new decor etc. Whatever we fancy for our home would be taken out of this fund. Well, ideally – this one is very new so we haven’t built up a solid amount yet.
Photoshoots (sinking). I love creating memories and I am an aesthetic wherever I can apply it. Also, being a mum it means that I’m taking tons of pictures but there are rarely (good ones) of me lol. So family photoshoots is a way to secure those precious memories together.
Boat (savings). We have wanted a boat for a few years and so we’re saving up for one. We really look forward to summerevenings with a bottle of white wine and a handful of friends, swaying on the ocean in our boat.
Wedding (savings). We’re getting married (no date set yet though haha), so obviously we need to save some money to go towards this. Including honeymoon and all.

But that’s not all!

Theme parks and animal parks (sinking). We want to experience things together as a family and getting annual passes is a way for us to do this in a way that doesn’t cost us too much. We plan to have enough for 1 amusement park, 1 animal park and 1-2 museums per year. That means that we will visit the **** out of these during a year, instead of paying entry fees for new places all the time.
Experiences (sinking). Tickets of all kinds! Music, festivals, theatre, cinema – whatever comes up, we want to be able to be spontaneous.
Gifts (sinking). We have a big network of friends and family so this helps in ensuring that we always have enough for weddings, new babies, birthdays etc.
Photobooks (sinking). Every year, I make a photobook as a keepsake and for us to look back at our year. Again, memories and mementos are important to me and I’ve learnt that revisiting happy memories do you good. (The Remembering Self is a powerful one! Watch this Ted Talk to see what I’m on about).
Upskilling (sinking). This one is probably one of my favorite ones. Me and my partner are both very ambitious and learning is essential to us. A way for us to make space for this, is to set aside an amount each month to go towards courses, certificates etc. that we really want. If we can’t get them through our 9-5’s of course.

That’s a wrap for now, I hope this was eye-opening or inspiring to you! Let me know if you’d like a breakdown on how much is in each fund/how much we allocate every month!

How We Use Family Sinking Funds