Money Management

[->Soon]

there was a thread on this eons ago

What are y'all doing with your living money?

Just dumping it in a bank account?  short term CD?  Other?

[UnoriginalAndrew]

This is a good question.  I'm paying for my rent and utilities with loans, so I was considering putting that money in a checking account or something that I only touch when paying rent.

[TimBeConfused]

I plan on using an online savings account to store my COL loan money.  That way you can at least make a little bit of money on your loan with no risk.  As amusing as it seems speculating on oil futures is probably not the best idea, but to each their own.  I did get a good laugh out of that though.

[prince]

you could always open a money market savings account at the bank where your checking account is...this way you could dump all your loan money into a savings account that might generate a little interest, but mainly so that you can transfer the necessary funds into your checking account whenever you need to pay tuition, rent, etc.  i find this helpful for myself because i'm awful at keeping track of a checking account and this way i can help seperate spending money/loan money

[gclemen1]

I believe Wachovia offers a free checking account that will give you 5% interest for your first year with no minimums.  Someone will have to confirm this, but I remember trying to be upsold while dopositing a check a little while back.

[Team Awesome]

and our own personal Wachovia specialist chimes in!

[Freak]

I negotiated reduced rent with my landlord for upfront payment of the year's rent. The rest went into a checking account.

[Papa Bear]

I shopped online for a money market with a decent interest rate. I thought that struck the right balance, because I wanted to make low risk money but I also wanted reasonable access.

[A.]

A short term CD, if you're positive you won't need the money before the maturation date (Indymac and Wachovia both have competitive rates right now...around 4%).  A savings (HSBC-3.5%) or money market account (Indymac, which, at 3.85% is currently paying more than HSBC savings if you have more than $10k) is a more liquid option.

But if you're anal enough, reward checking accts offer the best rates (around 6%):

http://www.highyieldcheckingdeals.com/