Online Banking

[Patrick]

hehe. Yeah, the main thing for me is maximizing my money. It's easy to keep all of my money in the high interest account and keep only the money needed to pay a bill in the checking account. You don't need to use online banking to do that, but it is so much easier. And it amounts to more money.

Laurie, have you taken a look at Amazon.com Grocery? http://www.amazon.com/grocery-breakfast-foods-snacks-organic/b/ref=gw_br_gro/104-7123092-2443105?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=16310101 I haven't done sat down and done the research, but Amazon.com's prices are generally very good on most everything (either the cheapest or very competitive), so I don't see why they wouldn't be on groceries. Granted, there are some items you can't buy and some items you must buy in bulk from them, but it may be worth a look. Free shipping if you spend over $25 (or if you have Amazon Prime, which costs $79 a year, it's free 2 day shipping no matter how much you spend). Might be worth a look if you're serious.

[bushido_man96]

Good info, there Patrick. I may have to educate myself on money markets. My wife and I will need retirement someday.

[Patrick]

Yeah, I mean, if you just have money sitting in your bank account that you aren't looking to invest/risk losing and you have enough to reach the minimums, there is no reason not to keep it in a higher interest bank account until you need to use it. Like I said, there are minimums, so you have to maintain those minimums or face some sort of penalty (you could always check to see if you could cancel the account if that happens, before you open it), so you'll want to make sure that you can maintain them.

The interest on mine is 4.64% which I think is pretty good. Basically, what it amounts to is if you have $10-12,000 in there (as an example), you are going to generate $40-50 a month in interest. Over a year, you are looking at an extra $500 to $600. So, that's a nice bit of extra cash with no risk. The amount of money generated changes with how much money you have in there and/or how the interest rate changes. Money markets/high interest bank accounts are just like any other bank account. The main limitation, I believe, is that you can only write 3 checks/withdrawals to third parties in a month (or 6 total withdrawals period, including ones to yourself), so that's why you can't just have one high interest account. That's why you need the checking account since you probably have to pay more than 3 bills in a month.

Anyway, hope I'm not just repeating things you already know.

[bushido_man96]

No, its good info, Patrick. Thanks for that. I think I will look into it.

I was talking to my wife about our kids and their bank accounts. I think our daughter has around $500, and I was telling my wife that we should get her a CD. They normally go around $500, and she isn't going to spend it anytime soon, so why not help her out in the long run?

[Patrick]

No problem. Yeah, I don't know much about CDs, never had one. I've had a bank account since I was probably 7, 8ish I think. I'm not sure what my age was, but my parents have this picture of me going to open a bank account. I'm holding up a zip loc bag (with my apparent life savings in it... it was probably like $30-$50), smiling.

[bushido_man96]

No problem. Yeah, I don't know much about CDs, never had one. I've had a bank account since I was probably 7, 8ish I think. I'm not sure what my age was, but my parents have this picture of me going to open a bank account. I'm holding up a zip loc bag (with my apparent life savings in it... it was probably like $30-$50), smiling.

It is never too early to teach smart money management.

[pegasi]

I've had a couple CD's before, the way they work is that you give them $500.00, for a set period of time, say 1 year, at a set interest rate say 4%. At the end of the year, you can either take your $520.00, or roll it over into another CD, where you then earn the current rate of interest on the $520.00.

As to online banking, I do use it to pay my bills.

[lordtariel]

It is never too early to teach smart money management.

It's never too late as well. With the CD's as well, make sure you get one where you can take it out early if you need to. You'll wind up taking a penalty on the intrest earned, but it's there if and when you need it. (We wound up having to take it out early one time when we had to move) We keep a reasonable amount in savings for emergencies. Every time our CD rolls over, we stuff everything in the savings account above that mark into the new CD.

[Patrick]

Yeah, I agree (with it never being too early). I've been watching the stock market since I was 10 and have had stock since I was 11. So, although I'm only 22, I've been following the market for 12 years.

[bushido_man96]

It is never too early to teach smart money management.

It's never too late as well. With the CD's as well, make sure you get one where you can take it out early if you need to. You'll wind up taking a penalty on the intrest earned, but it's there if and when you need it. (We wound up having to take it out early one time when we had to move) We keep a reasonable amount in savings for emergencies. Every time our CD rolls over, we stuff everything in the savings account above that mark into the new CD.

Thanks for the advise. Since my kids don't get into their accounts, I wouldn't have to worry too much about the early withdrawal. I think I will talk to my wife some more about it this week, and see what we can do. Maybe we can get some for ourselves. Heavens knows I may need something like this to save up for my testings!