Watched my brother split $40k between 3 banks 'to be safe' and it hit me why I'd been doing it wrong
My brother was in town last month and we got talking about where we keep our money. He pulls out his phone and shows me four different banking apps, each one with a few grand sitting in it, and he's real proud of it like he cracked some code. I asked him why and he goes 'so if one goes under I don't lose it all.' I just stared at him because that's not how any of this works, and worse, I realized I'd been doing the same dumb thing for almost 7 years. I had money scattered across a savings account at my credit union, a checking account at a big bank, and some old account from a job I quit back in 2019. Once I sat down and added it all up, I had $11,200 total and most of it was making basically nothing. My brother's whole 'spread it out' thing sounded smart until I did the math and saw he'd made about $80 in interest across all four accounts in a full year. Turns out keeping cash in five places isn't safety, it's just five piles of money doing nothing while you pat yourself on the back. Anyone else ever count up their scattered accounts and get mad at themselves?