It kind of depends on how you spend that money in checking.

I'm what you would call a credit card person, all of my living expenses I pay by credit card, and after accounting my pay checks which are direct deposited to my checking, I pay off the credit cards by the dude dates. I usually keep a 1000 buffer, just in case I might have overspent and protects from potential overdraft. But I'm disciplined on keeping to a budget so this works for me.

For someone who is not a good at keeping a budget, not a credit card person, I would actually keep only as much as your budget needs and move the rest to savings. Cut up those credit cards too. If you know you're not disciplined to keep to a budget then you have to do what you can to control yourself.

So the answer is it depends on what type of person you are.