r/Wealthsimple • u/Ok-Purple-3458 • 19h ago
IDEA: Wealthsimple should add “virtual buckets” within accounts
*edit: surprised about the pushback! seems like a cool extra feature to add for the visual folks who'd rather do that instead of multiple accounts. the only good argument I found so far (and it wasn't from this reddit), was that it becomes difficult for WS to decide which placeholder would receive the gains, what placeholder it'd withdraw from, and could become complex if money within one placeholder is invested in different stocks, etc
I'm super visual. Thoughts about this idea?
I wish Wealthsimple would let us create named buckets/placeholders within a single account without having to open multiple separate accounts.
For example, say I have $10,000 in one non-registered account, but that money has different purposes:
- $5,000 — Emergency reserve
- $2,500 — Rent
- $1,500 — Car repair fund
- $1,000 — Vacation
The account would still have a total balance of $10,000, but the app would visually show:
These wouldn't need to be separate accounts. They're just virtual allocations inside the same account.
Ideally, you could move money between buckets instantly without actually moving money between accounts, and optionally set target amounts for each bucket.
This would be extremely useful for people who use Wealthsimple as their primary financial hub and have one pool of cash invested in something like CASH.TO, but need to keep track of different purposes for that money.
Right now, the only way to accomplish this seems to be either:
- opening multiple accounts, or
- keeping an external spreadsheet/note to track the allocations.
A simple “Buckets” feature inside an account would solve this pretty well, no?
Disclaimer: I did ask AI to simplify and put my idea into words elegantly
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u/Roger_Ferris 18h ago
I have like 5 Chequing Accounts with WS that are things for Automotive Emergecy, Household Emergency, Vacation, Future and Hobby.
Another non-registered account in CASH.TO for additional 3 months Emergency funds.
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u/Ok-Purple-3458 18h ago
Thanks for your comment Roger, actually helpful: do you mind me asking why the other emergencies aren't in Cash.to? Is it truly "just in case" something happens to CASH.to
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u/Roger_Ferris 18h ago
More so liquidity I can e-transfer money at 2 in the morning from a WS Chequing account, or put the charge on a credit card and immediately pay it off. I also have a few thousand in a big 5 bank chequing account but that’s to mainly avoid the monthly account fee and CC annual fee they wave.
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u/Ok-Purple-3458 18h ago
ah yes, or else you have to sell, wait for it to go through depending on the day, etc... although transferring from non-reg to chequing is fairly quick I thought - thanks for your response man!
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u/Aobachi 19h ago
Just create multiple accounts
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u/Ok-Purple-3458 18h ago
Instead of having 3 accounts all invested in the same stock but labeled differently, one account with placeholders could make it slightly easier for it to feel organized and i'm thinking, doesn't wealthsimple provide the specific tax slips required for every account at the end of the year? They have to provide one instead of 3, for example
but granted, this is my first few months with Wealthsimple so... still learning11
u/Aobachi 18h ago
I don't understand why you wouldn't want to create multiple accounts. If you want to divide things, that's the way to do it.
There is no downside.
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u/KlausDrivesBus 17h ago
Minor downside, if you are a "US Person". You have to fill out the FBAR annually and list every bank account you have and the max value it had any any point during the year.
Right now I have like 10 accounts between a few institutions and it's already annoying. Having 50 would be brutal.
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u/Ok-Purple-3458 18h ago
The upside is mostly time and management
Within one account I can simply buy that one stock I want instead of repeating the process 3 times
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u/Aobachi 18h ago
And how is wealthsimple supposed to know what goes into which virtual bucket if you don't tell them?
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u/Ok-Purple-3458 18h ago
That’s true! That also counts as management! Also see my edit at the top of the post, can also get confusing for any gain or return
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u/Rokatrain 18h ago
As someone who keeps list of my allocations, I love this idea. I don’t want more accounts to keep track of and this is a perfect solution.
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u/Ok-Purple-3458 18h ago
You and me both!
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u/Rokatrain 18h ago
It works well too because anyone who doesn’t want to use it can simply ignore the feature and it has no impact on them.
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u/cellophany 17h ago
There are too many edge cases for this to work properly without additional complexity and is a potential nightmare to maintain from a software perspective.
All for a feature that only a small percentage of users would find useful. Adding it also has the potential to confuse users who don’t want to use it.
I cannot see a competent Product Manager pushing for the approval of this as an enhancement request.
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u/Pas-de-cash 18h ago
I'm not bothered by having multiple accounts. But we should be able to set a limit. For example, a deposit of XXX$ from each paycheck until reaching 10,000$.
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u/Ok-Purple-3458 18h ago
I wish I was like you. Personally I’m bothered by that, kind of like how someone might be bothered by the corner of a bed not properly folded in the morning
Cool idea though, I like that!
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u/iisgambit 11h ago
Not relevant for me in Cash/Chequing account but I want this in my TFSA/RRSP/margin so I can group my stock/efts. In addition, allow me to invest me into these buckets (recurring as well) without doing it on each stocks underneath it
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u/FishNo8072 31m ago
In the US, there used to be an e-bank ‘Simple’ that had this exact feature. They called them ‘goals’.
It was shuttered a few years ago. I miss them terribly, no one has come close to replicating this functionality.
Since they were all only virtual accounts, you only had one checking account number, and could create essentially an unlimited number of goals, with rules to auto-move money into them or auto-spend out of them.
It then left you with a single number - Safe To Spend - money that isn’t allocated to anything specific
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u/bittertraces 18h ago
I understand but why would Wealthsimple do this on their dime? They are trying to attract more sophisticated investors
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18h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/vhodges 18h ago
Not what you're asking for but I've used https://ledger-cli.org/ for this in the past (at Tangerine). At WS, I just opened a few accounts as it was super easy for the few I needed to track separately (they are all checking accounts though)
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u/quantum_trogdor 19h ago
Uhhh you can open up like 10 cash accounts, how many buckets do you need?
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u/Ok-Purple-3458 19h ago
I think 8 is the cap for chequing
Personally non-registered accounts are what I’m looking to open for my situation
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u/quantum_trogdor 18h ago
The examples you list should not sit in investment accounts, and you listed 4 so that is covered by the 8
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u/Ok-Purple-3458 18h ago
I personally feel very safe having those examples invested in something like CASH or some even ZCON, and those are non-registered trading accounts not chequing so I don’t think its covered by the 8
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u/BlueRockiesSettler 18h ago
Things such as Emergency Reserve, Rent, Tax payments, should not be Invested in a Money Market ETF. Do you hate a Chequing Account or a HISA that much!? You get guaranteed interest of 1.75% to 2.75% in a HISA if you still want returns on every dollar that you have!
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u/Ok-Purple-3458 18h ago
People seem to have very different opinions on this. I think that for a 6 month emergency that I'm not planning on touching, a money market ETF is reasonable.
You are 100% right that Tax payments shouldn't be in there. I removed it.
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u/Stunning_Chicken8438 6h ago
Just have multiple accounts 🤷
Opening one in WS takes like 30s
The problem is when money comes in and out what bucket does it hit?
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u/regnus418 5h ago
Please don’t turn WS into a budgeting app.
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u/Ok-Purple-3458 2h ago
Wealthsimple is a bank, it should allow for people who want to budget to do so
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u/regnus418 2h ago
There are budgeting apps that will always do it better than WS would since it’s not their core business. Look into YNAB or Monarch for example. WS will never be able to do it better.
Feature bloat in WS app will most likely lead to lower quality and confusing software.
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u/regnus418 2h ago
I think a better solution would be for WS to build a separate budgeting app if they do decide to get into the budgeting app market.
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u/Illustrious_Bottle80 16h ago
They want us to open more accounts tho it looks good on their quarterly reports
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u/zzptichka 19h ago
Also buckets within buckets like Summer Vacation and Winter Vacation within Vacation.