(no subject)

[which_chick]

I wonder how much money people keep in their checkbooks. Would it be very wrong of me to fish through the trash can in the atm annex at my bank to gather up the slips (they contain account balances on 'em) and report back on my findings? It is *trash* after all. You're allowed to look through trash, right?

Comments

[wynnsfolly.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't recommend that approach unless you are on a first-name basis with everyone at the bank & the entire police force.

I can tell you that I keep at least some twenties or a hundred in my checkbook, but that doesn't affect the balance of my checking account.
;-D

which, by the way, also varies considerably depending on how recently I've been paid. I'm a believer in the theory that checking accounts are for processing money, not storing it.

[gwangi.livejournal.com]

I always peek at the slips laying around when I hit an ATM at a gas station or wherever. If people didn't want you to see them, they'd scrunch them up before they threw them away!

[fooliv.livejournal.com]

You mean their checking accounts, or physically in the checkbook, as cash, like it was a billfold?

I used to keep a couple thousand in there in lieu of balancing my checkbook, but it's swelled as my money-market turned into an amazing waste of time and non-interest, and I've been using up the utterly useless cheques the goddamn bank made me pay for when I opened the money-market last year. Fuckers.

I'd put the excess into a Roth IRA, but I figure I should have it liquid in case my employer suddenly vaporizes, which is always possible with small tech companies.

Why, are there decent CDs out there these days? I had been thinking of paying down the principal on my mortgage when my monstrous and mostly-unearned tax refund shows up, but I'm persuadable.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

On the "How much money people keep in their checkbooks" thing, I mean "what sort of balance does the checkbook have?" -- receipts from the ATM would tell me people's ending balance. Mine, not that you asked, is generally a couple of thousand dollars. It grows because I spend (way) less than I make. When it gets to 10K, I do something with the money because it is wasteful and wrong to forego interest on 10K. "Doing something" is usually loaning it out at 7%, putting it into my Roth IRA, sending it off to my brother's kids' college funds. Sometimes I put it into one of my online bank accounts (I have several, all of which are currently paying a whopping 1.10%) for later. Oh, and sometimes I spend it on stuff. Last year I bought a roof for my house. It's metal. Cost me $3800 but now the roof does not leak. (The Roth didn't get any money for 2008 b/c I bought a roof instead.)

On what to do with your piles of filthy lucre -- Oh, dear. Where to start?

Keeping more than walking-around money in a checkbook is not a very good idea. Most checking accounts do not pay enough interest to bother keeping track of it. Even ones that do pay interest pay it at shit-tastic rates these days.

CD rates are also in the shitter at the moment, cf. notes from most recent FOMC meeting: "The Fed has held its target range for its bank lending rate between zero and 0.25 percent, where it has been since December 2008. In response, commercial banks' prime lending rate, used to peg rates on certain credit cards and consumer loans, has stayed about 3.25 percent. That's its lowest point in decades." (Source (http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/personalfinance/more-upbeat-fed-pledges-to-maintain-record-low-interest-rates/1091174))

Money markets are probably the best you're going to be able to do for a cash investment right now... and they're not particularly stellar. On the plus side, they're way more liquid than CDs in the event of job evaporation.

Dumping the money into the house is not a bad idea, particularly considering the lack of exciting interest-rate options. The house is a real thing and will retain value in the face of inflation (which, given our exceedingly lax monetary policies at the moment and our willingness to print our way to solvency, remains a concern).

If it were me, I'd split the monies available to you in half, roughly. One half goes into a money market account for whatever poor interest you can get from it. Some is better than none. The other half you can dump on your mortgage and turn it into "house" which will hold value better than our dollar will over the next thirty years.

If you have money that you don't need now or in the next thirty years, you can open up a Roth IRA (You only need 5K to do that) and invest it in solid stocks with decent dividends and a history of fiscally responsible behavior. I'm partial to utilities (water, electric, gas) at the moment, but feel free to find your own path there.

[fooliv.livejournal.com]

You got a metal roof for 3.8k? Either you have a much smaller place than I thought, or my friend is getting rooked. He bought a good-sized Cape Cod last fall, and early this spring a high wind ripped up part of his roof & demonstrated that he had rot going on up there; last time I heard he was looking at 13-15k for a metal roof. Admittedly, that may include some timber replacement, I haven't seen just how significant or extensive the rot was. And Cape Cods do have a disproportionately excessive amount of roof for the square footage.

I got pulled into a money market with my own bank last year with an "introductory" rate. After three months, it dropped to a fraction of a percentage point - like 0.05%. It really isn't worth bupkis, but at least they're within strangling range if there's a run on the banks.

And yeah, half and half was pretty much the idea. I've got about as much in my checking account as I'm expecting from drunken ol' Uncle Sam this year.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

It's just me, here. What would I do with a big place?

The house is damn small. One floor, measures 24' x 32'. Inside it has a kitchen/dining/living area, a bathroom, a laundry room, a closet (stores projects and cardboard), a bedroom, and a room full of books and stuff that could be a closetless guest room if I didn't have it full of my own stuff. (Also, I hate having people in my space. A lot. Not a lot of impetus, there, to fix up a guest room.)

The roof peak is along the 32' length of the building, in the center like normal roofs. There is a mouse built to shed water to either side of the chimney which is positioned in the middle (sort of) of the front 32' side. I also got facia in metal at the same time.