First of all, thank you for all your emails of support. I'm glad so many of you are enjoying this blog. Feel free to add comments too :)
Last weekend, dh and I continued to work through our life plan and realized one area that we needed to address was how we budget for big ticket items throughout the year. All the top financial advisors will tell you to put money in a savings account for those larger bills (house taxes, preschool tuition, agency fees, etc) so they don't catch you off guard and screw up your cash flow. And they will tell you to get a free checking account like this one that pays an additional $50 for direct deposit.
But those banks have crap savings accounts. .055%? Pffft. Online savings accounts are the way to go like this one from HSBC Direct that pays 5%. No fees, no minimums and it's FDIC insured (which is more than you can say about your 401k!). Put aside $1000 and you're getting 'paid' $5 to let them hold onto your money for a rainy day (or taxes come due). And with all that interest coming your way, you can go shopping again!
