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Personal financesPublished

Control your finances like a Pro with multiple accounts.

It pays off to get three bank accounts to manage your personal finances. Get inside tips from a real pro - Lunar’s head of credit - and the neatest way to organize your accounts right here

We all know the type. The person who just has their finances and spending under control, and has the freedom to make impulse purchases, and who never has a minus on their account.
With equal parts envy and self-insight to know that you’re not (or don’t have the energy to be) a superstar when it comes to personal finances, we’ve found a true pro who will give you the best advice for top-tuned personal finances.
If you really want to get the most out of your money and want more surplus energy to do fun and impulsive things you need to have your finances in check. My best advice for that is to use three different accounts for that.

Says Mette Ahlén Meldgaard, who is Head of Credit at Lunar. She is the one that decides who can loan money. She has previously been both branch manager and a financial counselor, so she has seen thousands of budgets, overdrafts, and amazing financial control.
Mette is also a super-sharp budget-type-of-person, who has organized her private finances in a style that even Marie Kondo would envy. Here are her best tips for getting your finances under control.

You get one free account at Lunar. If you want more to control your finances, you can purchase an extra account for 9. DKK a month. If you want three accounts, you could upgrade to Premium - or you could six with Pro. At the same time, you will save a lot of money on fees worldwide, get three virtual cards, and a first-class travel insurance. Download the app here You won’t need to switch banks to get started.

Step 1: Salary account.

Your first account should be a salary account. That means that it’s here that your salary and other types of income should go.

Move Nemkonto.
It’s a good idea to connect your public NemKonto, so everything is gathered in one place. It could be SU, child benefits, or other social service incomes. Many businesses also choose to pay out salaries to your NemKonto.
In the Lunar app, it’s easy: You can find ‘NemKonto’ under ‘Products’ and choose ‘Move NemKonto’. Voilá

Controlspending in categories.
You should control your private spending from the salary account - all the things that are not monthly or set expenses (Psst! They also come under ‘budget account’)

Now you need to have an overview of your spending. You can do that pretty fast by going to ‘Spend’ in the Lunar app, where your spending is set into different categories, such as food, drink, groceries, entertainment, personal care, etc.

The smart thing here is that you can create an interactive budget directly in the app and set a limit on spending in each category.

Get notifications.
Lunar will send you a notification each time you use your card. For example, If you eat out and it costs 1000 DKK, you'll get a message that you have used half of your monthly food and drink budget if that was 2000 DKK.
Then, there are no unpleasant surprises when you check your bank account.

Save your receipts.
When you're a real pro, you can hide all of your receipts from purchases in the app. Just press the logo - e.g. 'Magasin'.- and under 'Attachments' you can save a picture of the receipt. Then, you won't lose it if it has to be returned, gifted, or if it breaks.

You can get all the interactive spend- and budget features in the Lunar app for free. You can also pay a bill just by taking a picture of it. Try it here

Step 2: Budget account.

Bring out your calculator for this step, because it's necessary that you get a complete overview of what you have as recurring expenses. That could be:

  • Rent
  • Electricity
  • Insurance
  • Unions
  • Loans you need to pay off
  • Transport
  • Licenses

Question: Where should subscriptions such as streaming, fitness etc. go?

Response: “Personally, I keep those on my salary account. It's typically the payments that are taken from your card. If you want them gathered on your budget account, try creating a virtual card for the payments. Then you don't risk card fraud, which is a real bummer on your budget account"
When all your recurring expenses are gathered, you can begin assigning your bills to Betalingsservice.

After that, take the annual amount - some expenses are paid each month, others every quarter, and some once a year. If your amount is e.g. 71.600 DKK, divide that with 12. That means that you have recurring expenses for 5.966 a month and need to transfer that amount to your budget account every month.
By doing so, you'll avoid that some months may be very tight - but you'll get everything spread out neatly throughout the year. But keep your fingers away from your budget account - even if there's a surplus some months.

Step 3: Savings account.

The third 'must haveø is your savings account. Set a monthly transfer from your salary account to your savings account, but it can be quite boring - and too tempting - if your money is just sitting there.

Mette Ahlén Meldgaard has 10 accounts or goals on her savings (!), but fewer will also do the trick. With Lunar, it's fun and motivating to save up because you can create a Goal, choose an image, and create a rule for when money should be transferred to the account.

You can almost get addicted to saving up, when you see the visualization of your goal and see it coming closer and closer to being realized.

Mette Ahlén Meldgaard is doing it very systematically has smaller goals herself for:

  • Unforeseen expenses (dentists, something breaks, etc.)
  • Vacations (She has for sommer, winter, and fall breaks
  • Presents
  • Surprises for her children
  • Surprises for her husband

All in all, it's good to have a buffer on your savings account so you can survive if you lose your job, take fewer hours at work, become pregnant, or make a large purchase that wasn't planned.

Question: Besides getting an overview, what are the other benefits of controlling my finances on multiple accounts?

Answer: "If you have everything under control it will give you better opportunities for reaching your goals. Even if you have a great savings account, most people will need to loan money at some point in their lives: for a car, a house, or for spending. Here, an overdraft is one of the things that could stop you from getting a good loan. Bad financial management will hurt your credit score. When Lunar needs to evaluate whether or not we can loan you money, we evaluate all of your finances which we use a credit score for. You will get a full insight in that - and how to improve it."

Do you want to control your finances with multiple accounts, and get an app with smart features, and a card filled with benefits? Download the Lunar app here and choose Lunar Premium - or try Lunar for free and get an account and our black Visa card.

Do like 850,000 others, get Lunar now.

Sign up for Lunar and get a free account and digital card, so you can pay with Apple Pay and Google Pay. You can even try Lunar without leaving your current bank.