one word with regards to earning interest on your savings:

INGDirect.


This high-interest-earning savings acct lets you do any transfers to any bank any time. Could take a couple extra days but so worth it in the end! Plus, a little known fact, if you do a transfer between ING and Bank of America, it counts as a Direct Deposit! This alleviates their monthly fee for some accounts such as the bank ones that have airline bank cards that earn miles on PIN transactions as well as credit transactions out of your checking account! The only downside with BofA is that they have no OD protection unless you have one of their credit cards too and not all will work for that. the baseball BofA cards do not, for example. BTW, ING transfers to Citi do NOT count as DDs. They were wiser.

Nevertheless, I have set up all my accounts so they can transfer in and out of one another. I use citi and it costs nothing but I have nothing in it right now either. If I try for the ultimate savings acct, I may try to load it in creative ways...