Whats your method for keeping a satasfactory minimum balance in your checking account?

Heres my story- My husband used to get paid once a week with direct deposit into our checking account (everything we pay or buy is from that one account). Now its once every two week and not direct deposit (a pain.....). Whats the logical place to deposit the checks? should I always be putting checks into the savings account and just constantly transfering money to checking? Do you set up an automatic transfer? Do you just depost it into checking?

why don't you deposit a minimum amount to the checking account to avoid the fee and then just deposit his checks as you need for expenses (once every 2 weeks or once a month)?

also, if you have a savings account in the same bank and link it to the checking account, you won't need to keep a separate minimum on the checking account, afaik

Direct deposit into my checking account.

I make all deposits into our savings account. Then, when it's time to pay bills, I transfer an even amount (i.e. paying a $186.50 bill, I'll transfer in $200). This way, it makes my record keeping easier, and if I do write out a check for $10 or some minimal amount I don't have to worry about transferring the amount to the penny.

My checking account has no minimum, but IS linked to my savings and I can do everything (other than make the deposit) online. For deposit, I usually use dropbox, before hours.

Elana-we only write 2-3 checks a month, but have a debit card and online bill pay linked to that account.

Why don't you use a credit card. That way you have full control over your spending, and you can be sure that you will not dip below the minimum amount.

Are you asking me or nechama?

If you're asking me, I do use a credit card but not every one/place accepts it.

Before I was married, everything went direct deposit to a savings account, and I transfered $$ by phone when I wanted to use a check.

Now, we deposit everything to a checking account -- we don't have a savings account yet...We're waiting to figure out what to do with a largish amount of $, but for the time being, it's just sitting in the checking account and losing value...

You can still put it into savings, even if you don't know what you intend to do with it, is that correct?

There are plenty of banks that don't require a minimum balance.
Or consider one of the online checking accounts that don't require any minimums and also give you a bigger interest than your local savings account.

I keep a certain amount in checking and transfer the rest to ING.

LTL - why are you sitting on all that money? You should really put it into some type of savings. You can always transfer it elsewhere later.

My right pants pocket, although I am very rarely paid with a check.....

I know, we should put it into savings. But we keep thinking any minute we'll be putting into something bigger...but we really should look into it.

Currently, nowhere, since I am between jobs (yet again). But when I was getting paychecks, I generally deposited them into my checking account.
On a different note, I have recently been doing numerous transfers from my savings to my checking account, and I found out that I was actually getting charged by my bank every time I made more than 6 transactions per statement period!

What's there to look into? Can't you call up your bank and have them put some money into savings? Go online and quickly open an ING account. It's just a pity that you have a lot of $$$ and you're losing out on any interest it could be accruing presently. What's the worst case scenario? You'll put it into saving and then the next day you take it out b/c you found something better. It's not like you're putting it into a CD and you'll be losing out on interest if you take it out early.

This is such a hot topic in my house right now-- my husband likes to deposit into savings and transfer by phone to checking to pay cc bills, rent, etc., but I disagree; the risk of even one overdraft or bounced check fee by FAR outweighs the amount we'd be earning on a few thousand extra dollars making interest in savings.

We've been trying to decide on a portfolio of mutual funds or indices for well over a year and a half now, I don't think we'll ever agree on financial stuff.

How much $ do you think we lost by not putting in the $$ to a savings account - $25? Maybe I feel that if the $$ is in savings account, there's less of a likelyhood that we'll be on top of investing it into something big, but a checking account makes you want to move the $$ more.


Great point. Because of my irresponsibility, I must have bounced at least 4 checks. Definitely more than you'd be making with some added interest.

That issue shouldn't exist if you have the checking and savings accounts linked so it automatically pulls from savings, if not in checking.

We don't have that, I gonna look into it. We use Bank of America.

$25 a MONTH. (obviously depending on how much would be in the savings account...)

what's ING account?

ING is an online bank, they offer savings accounts with 4.5% interest.

oh, thanks. i'm a chicken, i'd be too scared to use it. i believe they are not FDIC insured, right?

Of course they are. ING is a banking powerhouse and all CD accounts are FDIC insured up to your usual $100,000.

There are other online banks that offer higher interest.
Tons of people use online banking nowadays, they offer competitive rates, so it's silly not to use them.

I have direct deposit to checking. I should change it to direct deposit to savings so my money will actually make it there. Now I always PLAN on moving it, but it never happens and somehow ends up getting spent.