How much do you keep in checking?

[glitzy07]

We recently moved most of our savings and sinking fund money to a high yield savings account to take advantage of the interest rates. I'm starting to wonder if I could move more and continue to earn even more. 

Since it can sometimes take a couple of days to transfer back to our main credit union, I want to keep that in mind but also don't want to be missing out on additional interest while the rates are high. We have great credit (both of us 800+) with a ton of available credit on cards if anything were to need to be paid for immediately.

So, how much do you like to keep very liquid and immediately available in checking, either as a $ amount or some other way of figuring it out?

I think when I initially moved an amount over to open the HY savings account, I kept two months of paychecks worth in checking. But since a lot of our monthly pay goes to sinking funds like vacation, emergency funds, auto/home maintenance, etc that aren't used in a single month I don't think we need to keep that much available. 

[simpsongal]

Hehe, as little as possible and I get free overdraft - I'm pretty sure DH keeps like a $2K buffer...

[kanga1]

I go back to $5000 on the 31st of each month and put anything above in savings. Mortgage is due the 1st and our main cc bills are on the 5th so I'm scared of the cc bill being too high (we pay it off every month) and not having enough time to transfer funds because like you said, it takes a few days to transfer. We also each transfer to our cabin account and vacation fund every week by automatic transfer. I could probably go down to $4000 each month but I'd have to pay closer attention to the cc balance and I don't necessarily want to do that.

[midwestmama]

I like to keep around $1000-1500 on top of what is needed for bills (ETA: bills that will be paid within about a week). Anything else gets transferred to our money market account. Because our money market account is at the same credit union, a lot of times I'll shift money between the checking and money market account as needed throughout the month, to get a bit better interest payment at the end of the month in the money market account. But anytime I need to move money between accounts, the change is immediate, so I don't have plan for transfer delays.

After a former coworker got her debit card # stolen and money drained from her checking account and all the hassle she went through to get it back, I'd rather not have that happen to me. (Though I only use my debit card in an emergency, just for that reason.)

[chpmnk1015]

About 1000-1500..

[dcn]

$1,000-$1,500.

[Roc A Bee]

I have $600 in my local bank savings account. I don’t keep more than a $200 buffer in my checking account.

If I needed to purchase something quickly, I’d put it on my cc and then transfer from my HY savings account. Which I do all the time.

[jewel]

I keep enough to cover all of my auto-debits for the month. I pay for every single thing possible with a credit card, but mortgages and a few other bills are on auto-pay from checking. That $ amount is pretty high because I have a couple of rental properties with mortgages, but I want to make sure I start every month with enough cash to cover every auto-payment, just in case the dates of payments/income don’t overlap like they should.

Other than that, I’m not worried about being able to access much cash immediately. I can’t really think of an emergency situation where I couldn’t wait a couple days for a cash transfer and/or a credit card payment wouldn’t work.

[dexteroni]

I also like a buffer of $1000 - $1500. That helps avoid having to remember to transfer from savings in the event of an unexpected expense.

[wildrice]

Not much, but I have a linked savings account and I try to keep around 10k in there. I can instant transfer between them, so if I need to access more money I can immediately.

10k is probably really more than I need in that savings account (given how little interest it earns!) but alas, I haven't bothered to figure out another solution.

[aspentosh]

About $1000 like a lot of other people. This allows us to pay off the credit card if we overspent via cashflow.

We do keep more in our savings at the same place because we have auto pay of a lot of annual fees coming out of there, so should I really need more I can grab from there with immediate transfers.

[allhis]

So this is kind of embarrassing bc apparently I’m doing something really wrong 🙈 We keep between 20-50k in checking which is tied to $100k in a savings account, earning like 0.1%
I’m sure we should move the savings into something higher yield, but I’m always paralyzed by indecision bc of lack of info. Can anyone suggest a high yield account that is easy to set up and from which we could move money fairly easily if needed?

[boiler717]

Not much, we have a linked HYSA that transfers immediately without penalty

[maloney]

Feb 2, 2023 19:25:48 GMT -5 allhis said:

So this is kind of embarrassing bc apparently I’m doing something really wrong 🙈 We keep between 20-50k in checking which is tied to $100k in a savings account, earning like 0.1%
I’m sure we should move the savings into something higher yield, but I’m always paralyzed by indecision bc of lack of info. Can anyone suggest a high yield account that is easy to set up and from which we could move money fairly easily if needed?

We use Capital One 360 Performance Saving.  It's currently 3.30% interest, so you could be earning a lot on your money.  It's easy to set up.  You'll link up a bank account and they will transfer a tiny amount to connect the accounts.  It takes a couple days, but once it's set up, it's super easy. 

[goldengirlz]

Feb 2, 2023 19:25:48 GMT -5 allhis said:

So this is kind of embarrassing bc apparently I’m doing something really wrong 🙈 We keep between 20-50k in checking which is tied to $100k in a savings account, earning like 0.1%
I’m sure we should move the savings into something higher yield, but I’m always paralyzed by indecision bc of lack of info. Can anyone suggest a high yield account that is easy to set up and from which we could move money fairly easily if needed?

Do you anticipating needing that much cash in the short-term? Otherwise, I’d invest anything above a six-month emergency fund.

[allhis]

Feb 2, 2023 19:56:35 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

Feb 2, 2023 19:25:48 GMT -5 allhis said:

So this is kind of embarrassing bc apparently I’m doing something really wrong 🙈 We keep between 20-50k in checking which is tied to $100k in a savings account, earning like 0.1%
I’m sure we should move the savings into something higher yield, but I’m always paralyzed by indecision bc of lack of info. Can anyone suggest a high yield account that is easy to set up and from which we could move money fairly easily if needed?

Do you anticipating needing that much cash in the short-term? Otherwise, I’d invest anything above a six-month emergency fund.

No, hopefully not? My husband is a physician who’s only guaranteed income is a relatively small monthly draw. He gets quarterly production bonuses that I generally leave in our liquid accounts, along with the money I make as a very PT designer, but since so little of our total income is guaranteed, I just get nervous about investing too much. Although I think I’ve accounted for most any large sudden cash needs… I’ve always been super conservative with money.

[goldengirlz]

Feb 2, 2023 23:10:56 GMT -5 allhis said:

Feb 2, 2023 19:56:35 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

Do you anticipating needing that much cash in the short-term? Otherwise, I’d invest anything above a six-month emergency fund.

No, hopefully not? My husband is a physician who’s only guaranteed income is a relatively small monthly draw. He gets quarterly production bonuses that I generally leave in our liquid accounts, along with the money I make as a very PT designer, but since so little of our total income is guaranteed, I just get nervous about investing too much. Although I think I’ve accounted for most any large sudden cash needs… I’ve always been super conservative with money.

That makes sense. It sounds like he must have pretty good security at least though, right? And you can always withdraw from your investments if you needed to. Just something to think about: the risk of needing to sell vs. missing out on higher returns, including hedging against inflation.

[simpsongal]

allhis do you have a high interest savings account linked to your checking? It's quick and easy to transfer funds betweeen our checking and "high interest" savings (I think it's like 3.75% now?) even though they're different entities. We have an amex savings account, it's similar to other high interest savings like PNC/ally etc.

You could keep a good chunk of that money in easily accessible liquid savings, and at least it would be earning around 4%.

[allhis]

Yes, his job is very stable, the only real threat would be if he became disabled somehow (which we have insurance for but would definitely require lifestyle change).
High yield savings linked directly to checking would be ideal, definitely something I need to look into asap. We just have everything in house at US bank and it felt too overwhelming to transfer, but clearly something I need to do. Even if it cant be directly linked, so long as we could gain access in a couple of days if necessary, that should be fine.
Thanks all!! (And btw Im aware that my screen name is really stupid. I blame setting up a nest account nearly 20 yrs ago and not having the interest to change bc I rarely post and apparently am lazy with that sort of thing 🤪)

[glitzy07]

Thanks, all! This was the kick in the butt that I needed to transfer more to the HYSA.

[flygirl]

I only keep a $200 buffer in our checking but I also reconcile my checking account to the penny so I know exactly what’s coming in and going out and when. We use our credit cards for normal spending and then pay it off monthly.

[brooke77]

I keep about $500 in checking. Everything else is immediately transferred to savings. I don’t use my checking account for any auto-payments, so it’s just in there in case of an emergency.

[niq]

One month bare bones expenses. Savings has another 2 months, Money Market has 3 more months.

Maybe there should be more these days ... or like 1 year CDs ... hmmm ...

[sadlebred]

About $50 more than the bills are due because that is all I have....

[mccallister84]

Feb 3, 2023 9:52:40 GMT -5 allhis said:

Yes, his job is very stable, the only real threat would be if he became disabled somehow (which we have insurance for but would definitely require lifestyle change).
High yield savings linked directly to checking would be ideal, definitely something I need to look into asap. We just have everything in house at US bank and it felt too overwhelming to transfer, but clearly something I need to do. Even if it cant be directly linked, so long as we could gain access in a couple of days if necessary, that should be fine.
Thanks all!! (And btw Im aware that my screen name is really stupid. I blame setting up a nest account nearly 20 yrs ago and not having the interest to change bc I rarely post and apparently am lazy with that sort of thing 🤪)

Yea definitely open up a capital one account or something just to get the higher interest rate. It takes about a week to move money the first time, and then about 2 business days once it’s established. But we also have a checking account with capital one that we rarely use but the money transfers instantly from the high yield savings account so we could write a check with it immediately if needed.