How I deal with my savings

Oh no! The TSX closed the day on a much lower note, at 21,650.41 points. My non-registered portfolio closed the day at $148,413.66, my US portfolio at $5,224.95, my RRSP stocks-only portfolio at $67,631.38 and my TFSA portfolio at $130,916.17. It was a big fun surprise yesterday to see my net worth exceeding the $360,000. This was the first time ever I was in the $360,000 mark. Obviously, today, I am no longer in the $360,000 net worth... I am waiting for a super huge paycheck tomorrow, so I am probably going to deposit some money over my margin account just to play on the safe side. I am looking forward to make a $2,000 deposit, which will reduce my margin debt to $44,098.66. I would like eventually to reduce my margin debt to $40,000.

This is one of the reasons why - in my opinion - we should all have at least 2 savings account with different banking institutions. In my case, my savings are put in 3 different accounts, within 3 different institutions. I had been set up like that for a little while now. I am not with BMO, but I think such problems can possibly occur with other banks too. Please read carefully this article, it contains valuable information that we should all follow. Never ever click on an email link to log in to your bank or broker account. Also, I would suggest that you check on your banking accounts at least on a weekly basis - that'what I do. That way, if anything suspecious happen in your accounts, you'll be able to react early.

Personally, I wanted to have different savings account with different institutions because of my margin account situation. In case of a major problem comes my way, at least I would have some savings put in a safe place and not everything would be gone... Also, I had been quite well aware of the problems explained in the article, spam, and hacking. Unfortunately, we can all be easy targets for those kinds of fraud. There is also some credit cards fraud - like those described in the article. Debit card fraud can also occur. You need to be careful. Having savings put in different banks won't protect me from anything, but at least, if a problem occurs, I know I have money available at my disposal while the problem gets resolved. There's always the cash option but I prefer the banking option. I never have too much cash in my pockets or at home. However, it could be a good idea to have a $1k - or just $500 - maybe in $20 bills, just in case of an emergency happens, but I don't do that.

Currently, I plan to keep a 5k in my main saving accounts, in my second one, about $2,100, and in my third saving account, $1,900.