That includes Hanukah, Christmas and birthday presents for the parents and relatives, friends' birthdays, teacher presents and the like. Otherwise, you have two people going in opposite directions. In some ways, the system is like the Christmas club accounts that banks came up with a generation ago to help customers save for the holidays. Those accounts still exist in many parts of the country, especially smaller communities, though banking officials say that with automatic transfers to savings and other such services banks now offer, many people find a specific Christmas account unnecessary. The Rosenbergs acknowledge that the escrow accounts could be viewed as nothing more than a device for hiding their savings from themselves, but they say the discipline the system brings is tremendously valuable.
Financial planners agree.
There are a lot of tricks you can play. Some mutual funds will yank money out of your checking account automatically if you authorize it, he said. They know it's fast. . . . But for some people it works. However, discipline is not the same thing as rigidity, Martha noted.