How Many Bank Accounts Should You Have? (I Have 4 -- Here's How I Use Them)

How much interest did your bank pay you last year?

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If the answer's under $10…you might be using the wrong account setup.

The truth is, most people are leaving easy money on the table just because they haven't organized their bank accounts in a smart way. I used to be one of them. Now, my wife and I use a four-account system that keeps our spending, saving, and investing super clean.

And we earned $798 in interest last year. Here's our setup.

How our four-bank-account system works

Here are the bank accounts we use and how we divide our money between them:

• Two checking accounts: Wifey and I each have a personal checking account at big banks (Bank of America and Chase) where our paychecks get deposited. It's how we pay for groceries, bills, and everything in between. We try to keep minimal balances in these, because they earn almost zero interest.
• A high-yield savings account (HYSA): This is where our long-term savings and emergency funds are stashed. HYSAs earn way more interest than regular savings accounts. We use an online bank that pays nearly 10 times the national average. It's our biggest earner as far as interest goes.
• A money market account: This account is tied to our brokerage with Fidelity. We used to do a lot of real estate investing and stored money here for short periods. Money market accounts also earn a high yield, so they're great for parking cash. These days we don't keep much here, but it's really handy to move funds in and out of our investment accounts easily.

Here's how our money flows:

• First, paychecks land in our personal checking accounts.
• We have set up monthly auto-transfers that send savings directly to our high-yield savings and brokerage.
• All of our spending goes on credit cards (paid in full monthly), with payments pulled from checking.

It's simple, earns us interest, and keeps every dollar working.

Why you need at least one high-yield savings account

If you've got savings sitting in a basic checking account earning 0.01% interest, you're missing out on easy money.

A high-yield savings account (HYSA) pays significantly more and is FDIC insured for security. Today's top HYSAs are paying up to 4.40% APY. That means $10,000 could earn $440 in a year, compared to just $1 in a traditional account.

This is how my wife and I earned $798 in interest last year. We parked our $20,000 emergency fund in an online HYSA and watched the interest roll in month after month.

How many bank accounts do you actually need?

There's no "right" number of bank accounts. What matters more is how you use them, and where you keep your money.

At a minimum, I recommend having one checking and one high-yield savings account. The checking is for day-to-day activity and managing cash flow, and the HYSA is for building up your savings and earning solid interest.

From there, you can layer in more accounts as your financial goals grow. For example, more savings accounts for individual goals, sinking funds, or investing accounts for retirement savings.

There's no one-size-fits-all rule. But there is one rule I follow religiously: always put idle cash to work.

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