How Much Do You Keep in Your Checking Account?
This post may contain affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
I don't think we've ever had a post about this, so here are some easy questions for today: how much do you keep in your checking account? How much do you keep in the savings account attached to your checking account? How much cash do you keep in your wallet or in your home?
{related: check out our personal money snapshots, where anonymous readers share their net worth, salary, and other thoughts on personal finance}
I think I've mentioned all of my answers before, but — as someone who makes a LOT of transfers to and from the family high yield online-only savings account, I don't like to keep a lot of cash around. In fact, I really only like to keep as much as I need to cover automatic transfers, plus the minimum, plus a bit of a buffer. So –
- for our main checking account, I try to keep about $1500 in there — for my business checking account I have a bit more just to cover various automatic transfers and automatic investments
- for the savings account attached to our checking account, I hate to keep more than the minimum in there, so $500 — we bank with Chase and last I checked the interest rate on our savings account was something like .01%
- cash we almost never have these days — we'll get $400 or $500 in cash maybe once a year and then distribute among myself, my husband, my eldest child, and a few $20s put somewhere fairly accessible. A few years ago I went to our local bank branch and got $80 in $1s and $5s and that's lasted us through a lot of Tooth Fairy visits and occasional travels/tips
The end result of all this is that I need to keep an eye on any big expenses coming down the pike so I can move money over from our high yield savings account (we like Ally) — but that isn't the worst thing. We keep our emergency fund, as well as several sinking funds, in Ally.
{related: not sure what to do first/next in your personal finance journey? here's our money roadmap}
Readers, how about you? How much do you keep in your checking account?
Stock photo via Stencil.
About $2-$3k. Would cover utilities, apartment fee, and some expenses.
Have $10k in an easily enough accessible HYSA.
You live on $2-3k a month?!
The median American worker makes $5k a month, so after taxes, insurance and other deductions, living on $2-3k a month seems pretty normal?
We keep around $30,000 in our checking account. Our financial advisor told us to keep enough funds to cover two months of expenses in our checking account. Our mortgage, credit card bill, and auto loans are automatically withdrawn from our checking account. Our emergency fund is in a savings account, and we have other investment accounts as well. I’m a little surprised at the post and the other commenter keeping less than $5000 in their checking account. I must not be understanding the question.
I can’t imagine keeping that much money in a checking account instead of a high yield savings account. It’s just as liquid/accessible as the checking account, just gets you a higher interest rate. I don’t keep much more than the expenses for the month in my checking, and that’s under $5k for my family rn.
1000% agree — your advisor maybe meant do not invest that money and keep it liquid, but it should be earning interest!
Man I feel stupid. Ok so you have your paychecks automatically deposited in your HYSA, and pay your mortgage, credit card, daycare expenses etc out of HYSA? Making all those changes to our automatic deposits and withdrawals feels daunting.
no. you have everything deposited to checking. anything that is left after you pay all of those bills should go to your HYSA — how much you’re comfortable keeping in your checking account after all of that (your minimum) is what the post is about i thought.
And then what do you use the funds in your checking account for? Is it for when you need to withdraw cash or write a one-off check to the babysitter or something?
yeah – anything that might come up that you can’t wait a day or two to get cash moved over from your HYSA (or put on a card)
No. All paychecks, credit card bills, and other autodeductions come and go from the checking account, so we keep enough there to cover what we expect to spend that month, plus a few k extra because I don’t like to track too carefully. That’s also where we get cash and write checks from (very rarely). Anything extra gets moved to the HYSA, but we don’t give that account number out, as I’d prefer not to risk the much larger amount of money in the unlikely event something goes wrong.
We usually keep around $6k in our checking account. That’s enough to cover our mortgage and our usual expenses for the month, with some extra so we don’t have to calculate too closely or worry if something gets double charged. If we’ve spent more than normal, we’ll keep more, otherwise we transfer the rest to high yield savings or investments. And to the poster above, I don’t know why we would keep any more than we would need to cover expenses. If we need more, we can transfer from savings instantaneously.
Between <1k and 10k depending on where we are in the monthly cycle of paychecks and credit card bills.
We have about 25-30k in a HYSA. I used to try to move our paycheck money there on the first of the month and then move money back on the 10th or so to pay credit card bills due on the 15th, but it got too complicated and I had late fees a few times so I gave up. Paychecks sit in checking until they get spent and the account gets depleted; then the cycle starts over again with a new paycheck.
I keep $2500 in my checking account. Currently have $75k in our HYSA, and about that in CDs as well. The rest is invested in the market.