Comments on: What Works For Me – Checking And Savings System

By: Kimberly Kelsey

Kimberly Kelsey — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 01:28:27 +0000

I’ve never heard of the remote deposit thing… very cool. But most, if not all, credit unions are part of the national shared branch system. I belong to a credit union 2 hours away. But I can make deposits in the ATM machine at several local credit unions with no fee. I find it humorous that the deposit is credited immediately, but if I had deposited it in the ATM rather than the drive through at my own credit union they hold it for a day or two… go figure! And credit unions often offer interest bearing checking accounts. Something worth looking into.

By: credit union member

credit union member — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:50:57 +0000

My credit union has made life simple. We have one checking account that currently pays 4.05% on the first $25,000. I have almost that much in the account and i have a hold on the portion that is my emergency money so it is unavailable to me. When I need it i just call and get the hold removed or reduced to a lower amount. So my emergency money is payin gout a great rate. Any money beyound that $25,000 goes to longer term investments like our mutual funds. t makes no sense keeping cash in savings accounts if you can’t at least get 2-3% at a minimum.

The best thing going is the remote deposit option. I can scan a check at home for deposit into my account. So i scan a check get the confirmation number and destroy it after the transaction. Never need to go to the bank.

By: Esther

Esther — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 15:12:48 +0000

Argh, the internet ate my first comment. Here it is again…

My husband and I have 3 checking accounts and 4 savings accounts between us. Here’s how they break down:

1) 2 individual checking accounts with Bank of America. (@Laura: we hate them too, but they’re the most convenient bank around here.) We use these for cash and check deposits, which are immediately transfered to our ING “Stash”. It would be simpler if we had a joint checking account with them, but we currently have too much inertia to switch

2) 1 joint checking account with ING.

3) 2 joint savings accounts with ING. One is our “Stash”, where our paychecks and any BoA deposits go. The other is our “Emergency Fund”.

4) 2 individual savings accounts with ING. We fund these with a set small amount each month from the “Stash”… so these basically hold our personal “allowances”. This way we have joint finances with a little personal financial freedom on the side. We both get the same allowance no matter how much we put into the joint accounts… our philosophy is that any income we have is the family’s shared income.

So every month we transfer our budgeted amount from the “Stash” into ING checking and pay all our bills from there. If we need to go over budget, that gets funded from our Emergency fund or personal funds, neither of which we ever want to touch, so we’re pretty strongly incentivised to stay under budget!

And while it seems like a lot of accounts, 5 of them are with ING, which feels like one account with some internal organization. Gotta love ING.

By: Laura

Laura — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 13:19:14 +0000

We have our main account with an online bank. We were with bank of America, but their customer service was horrible.

We’ve been fortunate to have direct deposit with our jobs and we transitioned the bills to come out of ING. We also have two small individual accounts with a national bank for incidentals. If in an emergency comes up, we can access the accounts.

We’re currently using proportional budgeting to determine how much each of us puts into the joint account. Basically the deposit is based on the ratio of our income to the family’s total income.

It’s worked well for us, but there’s always room for improvement.

By: dogatemyfinances

dogatemyfinances — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 23:31:02 +0000

I have a credit union that I leave a few bucks in if I have to deposit a paper check, but mostly I use Fidelity Mysmartcash. It “overdrafts” from the tax-free money market, so effectively my checking is my money market slush fund.

It lets me use any ATM, even those rip-off ones, and refunds the fee the next day, even abroad. *love* Fidelity BillPay is incredible. You also get a human when you call Fidelity.