My brother in law’s comment about savings accounts hit me weird

We were grilling last weekend and he dropped that he keeps 6 months of expenses in a regular checking account earning barely any interest. Said he liked it safe and easy, no thinking required. I do the high yield savings shuffle with 3 different banks for maybe an extra $40 a year. Made me wonder if the tiny extra effort is even worth it for that payout.

3 comments

3 Comments

mason.drew2d ago

Wait, is your brother in law me? Because I did the exact same thing for like 3 years. Had a fat stack of cash just sitting in a plain old Wells Fargo checking account earning 0.01% or whatever garbage rate they give you. Then my buddy Mike made me run the numbers and I realized I was throwing away like $200 a year for absolutely no good reason. Now I do the high yield thing too but honestly it's such a pain to move money around I only keep like 2 months of expenses in it. The rest just stays in checking anyway cause I'm too lazy to keep playing that game.

alext522d ago

Exactly @mason.drew. My dad kept his savings under a mattress until 2019. Wild.

thomasb412d ago

Took a similar lesson from a podcast where the host ran the numbers and it was something like $150 a year just for not paying attention. @alext52 hit the nail on the head with that mattress comment - we all have some weird reason we stick with what's familiar even when it costs us. My own checking account earns basically nothing but I keep telling myself I'll get around to switching.