How can a group of friends setup a travel savings account?

October 26, 2006 3:35 PM

How can a group of friends setup a travel savings account?

Is there a way for 5-7 friends to setup a travel savings account that we can all contribute to so that we can use it for a yearly trip?

If possible having no one person being in charge of it would be the best.

posted by Mesach to travel & transportation (5 comments total)

Every group benefits from a treasurer..

That being said, you might call a bank and see what it would take to add 5-7 signatories.. though I would loathe being the banker who had to set that account up.
posted by jazzkat11 at 4:54 PM on October 26, 2006

It's not too hard to open an account with that many signers at most banks. If you open a traditional joint account, you will each be considered to have 100% ownership of the account, but you can usually place a block or restraint on the account that would only allow debits if more than one (or all 5-7) signers were present. It's not terribly common on consumer accounts, but it's definitely not unheard of, at least not at the bank I work for.
posted by logic vs love at 5:11 PM on October 26, 2006

One of you would need a PayPal Plus account, but DropCash may work for you all.
posted by Ufez Jones at 6:19 PM on October 26, 2006

Something we did for a small trip that required pooling money but independent spending was setting up a Business/Premier PayPal account, and getting the ATM/Debit Card(s). You can order multiple cards with different names on them, and they'll all draw from the same PayPal acccount.

With this setup, you can either pool all of your money in a PayPal account (small fees will apply) or you can deposit it into the account holder's designated "secondary" funds account, which will be drawn upon should you go over your PayPal balance.

It was easier than dropping into a bank, and all of spending can be tracked pretty easily using PP's interface. You also get a (small) kickback on the credit card purchases, IIRC.
posted by littlelebowskiurbanachiever at 11:42 PM on October 26, 2006

Ugh, this sounds like a friendship ruiner in the making. How do you ensure that everybody deposits their amount all the time? What do you do when somebody doesn't put in their (monthly, weekly, whatever) deposit? How much leeway do you give people before you kick them out of the savings club? How do you ensure that one person doesn't just up and disappear with the whole thing just before your vacation? What happens when one person wants out of the vacation savings plan? Make sure you think of all these issues before you set anything up.
posted by antifuse at 2:24 AM on October 27, 2006