Where do you all put your money? (checking, savings, etc)

[maestro123]

With the endless possiblities to put your money, where do you all park your extra money?

For me, I have:

Checking
1) Kinecta Federal Credit Union - my primary checking account. pretty convenient for me. no stupid fees. short lines. plus they my credit union is linked with the co-op network, so i pretty can access virtually any credit union ATM for free. and get 0.25% interest. hehe, not bad for checking.

2) Washington Mutual - not too bad. no fees or anything, but no interest. plus the lines can get pretty long at the bank. more like a backup for me in case i cant find a credit union ATM around.

3) Citibank EZ Checking - ugh they are so annoying. fees to wire money in or out. long lines at bank. and just dont like the service. getting rid of this one as soon as the promotion runs out.

Savings
1) Kinecta Federal Credit Union - savings rate is okay at 0.5%. better than most other well-known banks though.

2) EmigrantDirect - 4.0%APY as of 12/2005. yeah baby! practically park all my liquid cash here. and i heard they're gonna come out with a cash rebate credit card in 2006. can't wait!

3) ING Direct - actually first started out using ING Direct, but have since shifted all my money to Emigrant Direct, since ING gives less interest than Emigrant. I like their website though...

Money Market
Sharebuilder - i think they're pretty good, but to be honest haven't done all that much research in this area. no complaints so far.

Brokerage
Scottrade - pretty new for me, so can't comment too much. $7 per trade plus pretty good reviews was what drew me.

What do you guys think?

[SunWuKong]

i keep all my money in cash, in a giant piggy bank.

[moJo]

are you sure you should be posting the details of your banking and investments?

[Craig]

... and what's the point of having so many checking and savings accounts ?

[SunWuKong]

Originally Posted by Craig

... and what's the point of having so many checking and savings accounts ?

he said that he was getting rid of one of the checking, and a second one was basically so he can use more ATMs without being charged a fee.

i can understand having different bank accounts because it helps if you want to set aside different stashes of money for different purposes. it helps with the accounting more than if all your money was in one account. and i think some banks don't allow for more than one saving and checking per customer? correct me if i'm wrong.

[Craig]

Originally Posted by SunWuKong

he said that he was getting rid of one of the checking, and a second one was basically so he can use more ATMs without being charged a fee.

i can understand having different bank accounts because it helps if you want to set aside different stashes of money for different purposes. it helps with the accounting more than if all your money was in one account. and i think some banks don't allow for more than one saving and checking per customer? correct me if i'm wrong.

Still, 2 checking accounts and 3 savings accounts still seems high. Aside from the rent/mortgage check, I don't see too much use for most people to be using personal checking. In actuality, I can get checks from my credit union without actually having a checking account.

Since my usage patterns probably don't mirror most, I was just being inquisitive. I'm not too fond of using cash, have only used an ATM once in the last 3 years, using checks is often a hassle and I mainly go to the credit union to get change for the laundry machines.

[maestro123]

Originally Posted by moJo

are you sure you should be posting the details of your banking and investments?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that I've listed any account numbers for you guys. I'm just listing the banks/brokerages that I currently use and like. How can that possibly do me any harm?

Originally Posted by Craig

Still, 2 checking accounts and 3 savings accounts still seems high. Aside from the rent/mortgage check, I don't see too much use for most people to be using personal checking. In actuality, I can get checks from my credit union without actually having a checking account.

Hey, that's cool man...whatever floats your boat. If you can get away with just one account than all the better for you. I just happen to have a couple for convenience's sake. Either that or some accounts just had really good promotions at the time or have really good interest returns. Just because I have three accounts of XYZ doesn't necessarily mean that I use all three.

To be honest, I was just seeing what banks you guys like. Some charge tons of fees (i.e. BOA, last i heard); some don't. But damn...you guys are critical...

[Craig]

Originally Posted by maestro123

Hey, that's cool man...whatever floats your boat. If you can get away with just one account than all the better for you. I just happen to have a couple for convenience's sake. Either that or some accounts just had really good promotions at the time or have really good interest returns. Just because I have three accounts of XYZ doesn't necessarily mean that I use all three.

To be honest, I was just seeing what banks you guys like. Some charge tons of fees (i.e. BOA, last i heard); some don't. But damn...you guys are critical...

I'm using Star One Credit Union. Currently 3.6% interest on a regular savings account.

Didn't mean to sound critical, but for me, it's not convenient to deal with the extra paperwork and account monitoring.

[SunWuKong]

Originally Posted by maestro123

To be honest, I was just seeing what banks you guys like. Some charge tons of fees (i.e. BOA, last i heard); some don't. But damn...you guys are critical...

hahhah sorry about that. i was too lazy earlier to list where i put my money, but here it is...

1) checking account with Bank of America. i use my debit card a lot so i need to have a checking account. Bank of America has pretty good and free online banking. i use online bill-paying for almost every payment i make every month.

2) saving account with Bank of America. i basically opened this account so i can earn a little bit of interest from the bank. i only keep what i need to spend for the month in the checking account. the rest goes in my saving account.

3) stocks with my etrade account. i haven't touched the stocks i own or put more money in the account for a few years. i basically opened the account when online stock trading was new and popular. i still check on my stocks quarterly though.

4) three different IRA accounts with Fidelity, Hartford, and Vanguard. i'm only contributing to one of them through my current 401K plan. the other two were 401Ks from previous jobs, and i just never consolidated them.

5) real estate investments.

[bushido]

All of my money is in one checking account. I like to keep it simple.

[TB4000]

The mattress, a-doi!

I have an online savings account I use with my prepaid mastercard.

[Chad]

I cash all of my paychecks and give it to my dad and he gives it to his friends who keeps all of ours family's money. Whenever I need cash I contact one of his friend's associates in town. It's a good arrangement because the guy keeps books what needs to be paid each month for each person.. so when my rent is due on the 1st of the month he knows to send my landlord the money and I don't have to do anything.

[LaiSteve66]

I'm broke

[eos]

i give all my money to my pimp.

[AznTrojan]

Originally Posted by akane21

i give all my money to my pimp.

where's my christmas bonus?