Virtual savings accounts for rainy day accounting

[Jeff Smith]

Thanks to all who have responded to my fumbling queries so far. I'm
making great progress on getting things figured out.Now that I have a 
clear picture of where the money's going, I'm moving on to the exciting 
part of graduating from financial spectator to money manager. :-)

What I want to do is leave all my money in my current account (let's not 
complicate things with secondary savings accounts just yet). Money that 
doesn't get spent in a month is thereby simply held over in that current 
account, accumulating for various long term savings goals.

But despite the fact that, from the perspective of the BANK account, it 
looks like one big slush pile, I'd like to have my GnuCash view be a bit 
more compartmentalized.

What I am planning to do is create sub-accounts of the current account 
called Emergency Fund and Special Projects Fund. Each month, a fixed 
amount will be transfered into each of these sub-accounts so that I can 
keep them separate in my view of the world, without incurring extra bank 
fees from having additional bank accounts lying around.

The idea is that, when I need money for something, I use GnuCash to see 
how much is in the various virtual accounts, and not ask my bank. 
(They'll just see all the various funds piled together in the current 
account, which is not useful information to me.)

The question is: is this a good way to set up these 'virtual savings 
accounts', or is there a better way?
-- 
Jeff Smith
Computer Science Dept.
University of Saskatchewan
http://jefficus.usask.ca