Originally Posted by kane

This is interesting. When I was in high school (I graduated in 1989) one of the required classes was called personal finance. It basically taught you how write a check, balance a check book, make a household budget and all those types of basics that a typical person would need.

My teacher taught us that we should always keep our money in savings until we have to pay our bills and pay them on the last day you can without them being late. For example, if the bill is due by the 25th, pay it on the 25th (if you can. You might need to mail it a few days earlier) and keep your money in savings until you write the check to pay the bill then transfer the money over to cover it. The idea was that you will gain interest on that money as it sits in savings and unless you have an interest bearing checking account you won't while it sits in checking.

I still do a version of this today, but I only make a few transfer per month since most of my bills are due either at the first of the month or around the 15th