All of your cash savings should be in an HYSA, none in a large bank savings account that earns nothing. I think anything $20-25k is the max you should have in savings, everything else should be invested. Of course, a lot of it depends on your age, net worth, family situation, housing situation etc.

One of the mistakes I made when I was in my early 30's was holding too much cash and not investing it. I had like $80-$90k in a HYSA, and I would have a few hundred thousand dollars more today if I had put that money in the market 10 years ago. I eventually invested most of that over time and today I keep very little cash, everything is invested.

We keep about $2k in cash in the house for true emergencies as in natural disaster / power outage type stuff plus I keep a go bag.

Have kept about 2 years of total spend in HYSA for the last 5 years because we've undergone several, major life changes (most were planned) over that time and I wanted enough liquidity to push through all of the changes. We were/are already maxing out everything else and hitting our savings goals so there was no real opportunity cost here for us.

Once we complete the next move we will be operating with about 6 months of cash in HYSA going forward because our situation will have changed.

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We keep about $2k in cash in the house for true emergencies as in natural disaster / power outage type stuff plus I keep a go bag.

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I have a little over double that, and I think this is ultimately what I'm going to keep for the general situations you stated as that is why I had it anyway. I do have a HYSA with American Express that has our emergency fund in it as well as money for the house since we don't escrow (taxes, homeowners, HOA, etc), and at 3.2% currently, it's not the highest out there, but I'm not going to move money around to different providers to chase a few dollars as rates change.

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Have kept about 2 years of total spend in HYSA for the last 5 years because we've undergone several, major life changes (most were planned) over that time and I wanted enough liquidity to push through all of the changes.

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We were sitting really pretty 6.5 years ago and then a doctor effed up our son and all of the medical bills, surgeries, PT, tests, etc over a 4 year period wiped out most of it. We took the a-hole to court and won, but because he is a minor, the courts wouldn't let us recover any of our out-of-pocket costs (close to $45k) and had it put into an annuity for him to get when he turns 18. His mother and I had the last laugh though as we set the age to 30 so he'll hopefully be more mature and not blow it on something dumb. It will also double in value in those 12 years, so he may be angry at first, but will appreciate it later. And if he leaves it alone, he'll be a millionaire before he's 40. He deserves more for what was taken from him, but we did what we could do.

We're building back up, but it's slow going.

coolerguy12 said:

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I run a side hustle buying and selling tractor implements. Currently have $14K in the safe. Was $17K but had some concrete poured in the barn and paid the guy cash.

I like keeping my side money separate because once it gets mingled into the family bank account it becomes family money. Cash in the safe is my play money. And I have a lot of fun with it.

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My dad always kept a lot of cash both on his person and at the house. He said it was in case he ran across a deal, and sure enough I have seen him buy a half dozen tractors over the years because he had cash on his person.

I do the same thing except I keep it at the house and sure enough having quick access to a few grand has come in handy a few times.

That sucks to hear but glad some positive came out of that.

I think for everyone else; if you aren't keeping some pocket cash at the house for local emergencies you are doing yourself a disservice. Especially if you live in a higher risk area prone to some type of outage via weather. We are only getting more digital as a society and outages that affect payment systems are a thing. It's happened to us in the past.

I'm not close to where we should be as a family in any of the categories discussed so far.

As the economy and instability world wide continue to cast uncertainty, my biggest fear is what will take place if we ever have another Black Friday type of event. I fear many are over confident based on FDIC protection.

The overall monetary losses were staggering, but the short term damage by bank runs and account freezes were worse. It was what, almost 3.5 years before things stabilized enough that those with any money left could have dependable banking again?

Just because the money is federally insured doesn't mean you'll have access to it if bank failures happen again. 2008 wasn't far from heading that way.

The modern strategy today to push everything to maximize return on investments hasn't been like this since 1929.

Do you have any grapples available?

aTm2004 said:

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AggieInHouston said:

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Do you mean actual physical cash? Or money sitting in a checking account?

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The former.

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Interesting question. I try to keep enough in the truck to pay for gas and a family meal if I just completely forget my wallet, which is about $100 today, and then try to keep a few hundred on me at all times for situations where there is a discount for using cash.

gmm1995 said:

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Do you have any grapples available?

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That's my bread and butter. Currently have a 78" new and a 60" used. Haven't loaded up in a while so my inventory is low.

281-798-7919

aTm2004 said:

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I think we all have a little cash stashed away for any kind of emergency or disaster where we need things immediately. But at what point is it too much and it's better to put most of it in a HYSA?

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It has taken me about 2 weeks to transfer cash from the Merrill Lynch checking (around .1% interest) to their "Preferred Checking" at 2.9% interest.

because I don't want to make a mistake I would do a tranche of 6K every day or two. I would recommend to everyone not to try to transfer over all of their assets at one time in the event of mistake- but test with low amounts and print out evidence of the transfers.

I have waaaay too much money in cash. Well into six figures. Just inherited some money and haven't decided what to buy yet. It's getting 3.5%.

I know you can't time the market but these AH are crazy.

Usually $1-2k cash in the safe. Most of it ends up paying the maid, then I restock. Usually have several hundred in my wallet that ends up being the backup to pay the maid because my wife didn't tell me we were out of cash in the safe.

Roughly six months of expenses in HYSA.

ok ok, im in

i have chase personal + business checking

where are yall housing your checking and HYSAs?

Hey GeorgiAg,
get a savings acct from Pibank at 4.40% and fill it up w/ $249k!!! That's about $186/mo more than your HYSA is currently making. It's not much, but it's something.

Pibank isn't great if you are wanting to move money around a lot, it's just a set it and forget it, with one of the highest HYSA rates out there.

OasisMan,
See my post above about PiBank

but if you are looking for a HYSA that is more established and quick/easy to move funds around, then I recommend Live Oak Bank. I have been using them for almost 10 years and they are pretty quick on turnaround. Their current rate is 3.80%.

LeftyAg89 said:

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OasisMan,
See my post above about PiBank

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actually that is what Chat led me to too,

setting there for just in case, not needing to move

I feed a taxable account i can get to, let it appreciate in the meantime. Its enough for about a year woth neothrr me or my wofe working and we keep another 10K in savings. When the savings gets too big I call my FA to draw more into the taxable account

OasisMan said:

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ok ok, im in

i have chase personal + business checking

where are yall housing your checking and HYSAs?

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Using Fidelity for spending. Our online savings is with Goldman. Fidelity is great in this space.