I just got my new (BT) credit card statement and so was able to redeem my $50 Target gift card. Woohoo. Should receive in a few weeks. I am pretty pleased though that I received the other one before the kids' birthday - will got to presents/party. This one I will likely save for some fall clothes for them. Either that or necessities if something comes up in the meantime.

The free $125 all told is a nice bonus on top of the interest I am earning. I have only executed one $5k balance transfer thus far. I will pay off dh's credit card today so that when he gets the statement next week I can execute that balance transfer. I will ask one more time for a credit increase too. See if I can squeeze out more than $10k. I am wondering if they will only require a 2% minimum payment as well? Well I can hope!

I have barely received the cash on BT#1 and I already have a statement. It is due mid-July. I am trying to decide when to pay it. I generally just pay these when I get the bill. But part of me thinks I should hang on as long as possible. I think I will just pay it though. I decided instead of transferring the money over (for this small one anyway) I can just do a bookkeeping adjustment. Reclass the $112 from "BT" category to "efund" category. Then I don't have to move the money out and lose interest. It is just $112 LESS I have to transfer to savings for the month. I can just pay it out of the no-interest checking. Gets a little complicated, but erases the benefit of trying to hold out and pay it back closer to the due date. Probably bad news. I'll set it to pay after I receive my paycheck on the 1st every month.

More bookkeeping, but little effort for free money!

Can I just say I want to THROTTLE dh?????? I have always hated his bank setup because he had to have a minimum $750 or something in checking and much more in savings. For this deposit he earned a whopping 0.5% on the checking or something. I always had free checking, no minimums, life was easy. Dh on the other hand had quite a few $50 overdraft fees because he would drop below the minimum on his barely-interest checking. HE would drive me nuts. I told him a million times why I hated his account and why I prefer my no-interest checking. I run the balance to 0. Any money that does not go for the current month goes straight to high-yield savings. I have on average $500 sitting in a low-yield savings along with my checking that I can transfer money to/from instantly. So I have a small cushion but the minimum balance is $1 and it probably makes more interest than his stupid checking. There are indeed many times the account sits at $1! I like the flexibility.

So he asks me again last night why our checking account does not pay interest. Like I have not explained it 1 MILLION times. I once again explained how the whole $50 overdraft fees here and there completely wiped out any benefit of the interest on the checking. Though I manage the money better and could probably avoid the fees, I would have to tie up x dollars indefinitely in a crappy low-interest checking account. No thanks dear!

Gah. My dh is smart but he is really hung up on that. LOL.

Well I am sure there are scenarios where it works, where we may even come out ahead. But I am used to running my balance to $0, enjoying low minimums (if any) and it just sounds like a headache. Not interested. Just one more thing to remember - stupid account minimum. LOL.

For example I can earn 2.8% if I pay a monthly fee of $5 and keep a $1k average balance. But I rather keep that $1k in my 5%+ money market. Thanks. Plus if I just kept $1k in there the fee would be more than the interest. This is the part dh never learned. I am not sure what will get it through his thick skull. ???