I'm not a rate chaser, mostly because I have no money. But at one point, I had eight bank accounts, each with a teensy bit of money. This was from sign-up bonuses, from quite a bit of moving, and from just sloppy organization. Recently, I dropped Bank of America (HATE!), I dropped Emigrant Direct (the same as ING), I dropped Everbank (HATE!), and I dropped Wachovia (not convenient to me).
Now, I have the following set-up:
FIDELITY Most of my cash is my Fidelity federal tax-free money market account (FTEXX). Texas has no state income taxes (yay!); federal tax fund is right for me. At my scary tax rate, it earned the equivalent of 4.98% last year. I think it has some sort of ATM, but I don't really want or need that.
I got a money market at first because my landlord takes forever to cash checks, sometimes two months! It pains me to lose interest that long. Now that I write that check out of money market, he can take his time! But since I've had the money market, I've really been impressed with Fidelity's service and billpay.
Pros:
* incredibly fast billpay, they must beam it over
* great interest rate and easier taxes
* easy to manage with my brokerage and 401(k)
* connected to the Fidelity Visa for 1.5% cash rewards. Yay!
Cons:
* checks have to be over $500
* can't get local cash (possibly my own restriction).
* can't hook up to Paypal
WASHINGTON MUTUAL I have a Washington Mutual account for my direct deposit and for local cash.
Pros:
* local, I pass one every day
* easy to get cash
* easy to ACH (Paypal and direct deposits).
Cons:
* low interest rate
* slow billpay (takes 5 days to clear, usually)
ING I also have an ING account because, well, I like ING, and I wanted an "invisible" account with a couple hundred bucks.
Pros:
* account I don't check much or think about much (emergency reserves)
* fantastic service
* decent interest rate
* takes a few days to get the money (it is an emergency account)
HSBC HSBC is fantastic abroad, especially in Asia. I don't keep much money in that account (currently $3.18); I take it out when I am done traveling. I have found HSBC ATMs in the strangest places...
Pros:
* good for travel
Cons:
* not local, no interest
I am about to have more cash than ever when I start saving for the wedding. I was planning to put it in Fidelity, but that is my functional account, so ING might be a better choice until I actually need to get to the money. Hmmm....
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
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1 comments:
the cons for fidelity that you post can all be addressed, i believe, if you open up a mysmartcash account. i have a brokerage and the "mysmartcash" account (which is just a brokerage account without margin options and with an fdic-insured deposit account as the "core" account). there's no minimum check (or debit/atm withdrawal) amount (your con #1) and unlimited atm rebates (your con #2). i would *never* link a paypal account to a bank account (but, if i did, i would link it to a bank account i used only for paypal) because paypal's terms and conditions make you bear all the risk of anything bad happening. for now, i think, you can get both $100 and 10,000 miles (united or american) if you move $10,000 of new money into the mysmartcash account.
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