Opening a Joint Checking Account

When we decided to move in together, I proposed that we open a joint checking account from which we'd pay our rent and utilities, and in which we could deposit the income we make from renting out our parking spot. The way C reacted, you'd think I'd just proposed we join the quiverfull movement and get populating or something. It was just too big of a step for him. But when we went in to sign our lease, there was a clause specificallly stating that we need to pay our rent with one check, and he started to rethink things.

I really think joint checking is the way to go here. We won't be combining our assets or anything crazy like that (even if we ever got married I wouldn't want to combine our money entirely.) We'll just be depositing the money for our rent and utilities each month so that when our bills become due, we can issue an electronic check (from both of us) from that account. Most importantly, it eliminates the need for us to write each other checks to cover paying from our own accounts, which is something I hate doing. In college, I was always the designated bill-payer and it really sucked. Having to ask people to pay you, constantly reminding everyone about bills, etc. is annoying. Having a joint checking account will make that role obsolete.

I've heard good things about ING's Electric Orange account. It's an interest-bearing checking account that has all of the features of your typical brick & mortar checking account; I already have a savings account with ING, and it couldn't have been easier to set up. We probably won't be using most of the features (like the MasterCard debit card, which I think we should just cut up), and we won't really benefit much from the interest-bearing aspect, since we'll only be depositing money for a brief period each month (the account pays 0.25% APY if you have a balance under $50k), but I think it'll take less time to set up. Plus, I've had nothing but good experience with my ING Savings account, so I wouldn't expect things to run any less smoothly here.

Decision-Making is Hard

A couple of days ago, Trent at The Simple Dollar wrote a post about the difficulty he has making financial decisions, such as starting a Roth IRA. Although I do take the time to think through before making financial and personal decisions, I usually choose one course of action quickly and work through the details as I go along. Many of those close to me, C in particular, are more like Trent.

C took well over a year to open an ING savings account; he asked me to send him an account invite several times before actually signing up. He also put off opening any CDs with ING while the rates were still high (in the 4-5% range, those were the days...), because he hadn't had the time to fully work through the best option of where to keep his money and for how long. Contrastly, I opened my ING savings account in the summer of 2007 after reading testimonials on several personal finance blogs. Of course, I took the time to read through the account literature on ING's site, made sure my deposits were FDIC insured, and did a bit of rate comparison on bankrate.com, but I gave myself a date by which I would open my account and did it. I did the same thing when I opened my CDs at ING, several at interest rates much higher than ING is currently offering; I did some reading to find out what the liklihood of a Fed interest cut would be, and I made sure I opened CDs a few days before any potential rate cuts, while rates were still high. This paid off majorly -- according to my ING tax statement for 2008, I made $889 in interest last year.

Another example is my downpayment fund. Some people would say that I should just put that money toward my loans, and I can't say I think that's a bad idea. But, right now I'm not sure what the best option is for me. My loan interest rates are all low at the moment (only the private loan has a variable rate, and it dropped from 8.25% to 3.25% over the past three years), so I'm planning to continue snowballing them for now. At this rate, I'll have the federal loan paid off by the end of next year, and the Perkins loan paid off shortly after that. Although I may decide to move some of this money toward paying off my loans even earlier, for now I'm going to continue saving for a downpayment, Even if this is the "wrong" decision, I'm putting money away every month, and I can always change my course of action. The important part is choosing to take action and following through.