I’m similar, but I’m with Fidelity instead of Schwab. Using a brokerage as a bank account is an awesome cheat code to getting awesome interest w/o any extra effort. My “checking” is a brokerage account and the cash sits in a money market fund making ~4.5%, which is awesome.
The main downside w/ an online bank/brokerage is lack of access to branch services, like depositing cash or withdrawing specific denominations. I maintain a local bank that doesn’t entirely suck to get access to branch services and leave like $50 in there so they don’t close it, and then just transfer money to/from as needed. All of my regular expenses go through my brokerage “checking.”
I’m similar, but I’m with Fidelity instead of Schwab. Using a brokerage as a bank account is an awesome cheat code to getting awesome interest w/o any extra effort. My “checking” is a brokerage account and the cash sits in a money market fund making ~4.5%, which is awesome.
The main downside w/ an online bank/brokerage is lack of access to branch services, like depositing cash or withdrawing specific denominations. I maintain a local bank that doesn’t entirely suck to get access to branch services and leave like $50 in there so they don’t close it, and then just transfer money to/from as needed. All of my regular expenses go through my brokerage “checking.”