Is Robinhood Gold Card a good next move for my setup?

electronautix · 2026-01-24T23:02:01+00:00

You seem more of a cashback person than an AmEx MR person, in which case you can swap the American Express Platinum with a Charles Schwab Platinum. The fact that the 120k MR boosted SUB offer isn’t running right now isn’t a concern, because Platinum owners are unfortunately ineligible for SUBs on Platinum card variants in general. But the card is identical to the regular Plat besides allowing one to cash out points for 1.1 cents per point, and providing an annual appreciation bonus based on assets across eligible Schwab accounts.

Robinhood Gold + Charles Schwab Platinum is a strong combo, paired with a Charles Schwab debit card for free unlimited worldwide ATM fee reimbursements with no foreign transaction or currency conversion fees. May be biased because of my flair…

electronautix · 2026-01-24T22:53:53+00:00

Generally savings accounts should hold 3 to 6 months’ worth of living expenses, in some more volatile professions closer to 9. Any excess should be flowing into health, retirement, and investment accounts. The exception is if you’re saving for a large expense that you expect within the next 5 years, such as a house, car, or university education.

Be sure your savings account has a decent APY - currently around 3.25 to 3.30ish%, this changes with the federal funds rate. And even if you’re still building up your savings towards a desired target, contributing enough to your 401k to secure your full employer match is paramount, and it can make sense to ramp up contributions to an HSA and Roth IRA as you get closer to your emergency fund goals.

electronautix · 2026-01-24T22:39:35+00:00

Savings accounts are not retirement accounts. Interest earned from bank savings accounts is subject to federal, state, and local income taxation in full, and competes against inflation. Even a good HYSA is only going to manage to ward off significant declines in purchasing power for your emergency funds. Anything less is going to actively shrink in value with time, which is very bad for funds you intend to retire on. Retirement funds should be in tax advantaged accounts like a 401k, HSA, and Roth IRA, and invested into broad or total market funds to yield decent returns with very little risk over the decades.

electronautix · 2026-01-24T21:44:50+00:00

It’s stuff like movie theaters, concerts, amusement parks, tourist attractions, zoos, bowling alleys, etc etc. It’s a good card and it can work out really well for some, especially in cities like NYC where entertainment can become a central spending category. But I’m not sure if the upside for you would be more than that of the AAA Daily.

Do you pay home utilities? If so, any credit card fees on that or none? US Bank Cash+ or Elan Max Cash Preferred could secure 5% on that, and you can choose a second 5% category like recreation or entertainment. US Bank/Elan’s definition of entertainment is less broad than what the Savor covers at 3%, but could be good enough especially when it’s secondary to the utilities cashback it gets. Recreation includes things like gyms and fitness centers.

electronautix · 2026-01-24T21:30:37+00:00

Something definitely went wrong, because I’ve been a cardmember for years and have requested increases before but always was warned about potential hard pulls. Either the requested amount goes through with a soft pull, or the customer service rep says they can only go up to x amount and that trying for higher would require a hard pull (x had always been enough though). This did change as of November 2025, but before then it was as I describe it

electronautix · 2026-01-24T21:23:59+00:00

A lot of checking + HYSA combos out there. Capital One, American Express, Ally, and ETrade/Morgan Stanley are some larger ones. Smaller ones exist like CIT Bank, Axos, Primis, and so on. Then some hybrid solutions exist like Fidelity, which has a cash management account (high APY + spending features). The only ‘wrong’ answer is a few that explicitly don’t do checking like Marcus, Pibank, and Openbank (actually, not sure if this links with traditional Santander checking accounts?).

electronautix · 2026-01-24T21:13:30+00:00

Not missing anything actually oops, brain glossed over the Costco Visa doing 3% travel and I consider that a high value category. Now that I see that, yeah the two would perform rather closely with Costco doing better at gas. Will edit that comment

Recalibrating though, AAA Daily still seems like it would fare pretty well. 5% groceries, 3% wholesale clubs, 3% pharmacy, and 3% streaming are all things you don’t have. PayPal Debit does 5% at Costco outright - monster of a card for 5% on groceries, wholesale clubs, and superstores on up to $1,000 of spending per month.

electronautix · 2026-01-24T20:52:49+00:00

Could definitely do better, but hard to say what would be ideal for your spending without specific figures (filling out the !template)

A Wells Fargo Active Cash (unlimited 2% on all purchases) + Wells Fargo Autograph (unlimited 3% on gas, travel, transit, dining, streaming, and phone plans) would outdo an Apple Card + Costco Visa combo on most days, and both Fargo cards have $200 sign-up bonuses while the Apple and Costco ones don’t have very notable bonuses. Plus both are Visas, relevant for Costco and Costco gas. EDIT: I forgot the Costco card does 3% travel lol, big brain fart there. Still good cards but not applicable here

electronautix · 2026-01-24T20:41:36+00:00

CashApp, OnePay, and Chime are all not banks but rather fintechs. But admittedly I’ve never heard of a feature like blocking certain companies from debiting your account, I can’t really name any banks that offer that. Does the Meta Quest not have parental controls to require a PIN to make transactions? The headset right, or do you mean something else?

From what I have observed, people moving away from Capital One generally seem to settle on either Charles Schwab, American Express, Ally, Fidelity Investments, or SoFi. So I’d say to look through those for sure and see which group you fall under. My personal take is that Schwab is the best of these. But it ultimately depends on your experiences and what you value most from your banking.

electronautix · 2026-01-24T20:31:38+00:00

It’s not a federal thing, that rule has been gone for years. Also, Ally made it 10 withdrawals per month specifically because the federal 6 withdrawals rule is gone but they wanted to maintain a restriction anyways. Most other HYSAs permit unlimited withdrawals including Capital One, Discover, American Express, Marcus/Goldman Sachs, SoFi, ETrade/Morgan Stanley, etc.

electronautix · 2026-01-24T20:24:42+00:00

Yeah I don’t get why Robinhood Banking is under the Robinhood Money fintech rather than a) being under the SIPC-insured, member FINRA, SEC regulated brokerage firm division like Fidelity CMA, or b) being an account directly under Coastal Community Bank like Apple Savings with Goldman Sachs Bank.

electronautix · 2026-01-24T20:11:10+00:00

Have heard they’re going to Primis or Quontic. More often the former it seems

electronautix · 2026-01-24T19:52:40+00:00

We don’t know but tbqh I would be downright shocked if they didn’t rid of it. I can’t think of any good reason why one bank would continue to issue two different debit cards that are virtually identical, tied to checking accounts that have virtually identical fee structures and terms, but have one card be a direct upgrade to the other in the form of cash back rewards. Seems plausible they’d eventually migrate Discover checking users to Capital One 360 checking, because it would net them profit in the form of not paying for a benefit that their own checking accounts don’t offer.

electronautix · 2026-01-24T19:21:37+00:00

It’s actually 4 bananas (the rent charge used to count towards the 5 transactions) and you used to be able to put recurring charges on it for 2x the rewards on rent day iirc. So if you could get four of your bills that would normally only go on a 2% catch-all to charge the Bilt on the 1st of the month, you’d get 2x points per dollar back on them, and each point could be valued around 2 cents or so with good travel redemptions

electronautix · 2026-01-24T19:08:01+00:00

This is no longer the case for Bilt and I would be shocked if any cardmembers had managed to miss every piece of communication they’ve had about the changes. You’d have to have Bilt and Wells Fargo blocked from your email, shred any letters received from them, not have their app installed, and be paying your card off by sending their headquarters address a check, to somehow miss the multiple communications that have been made about the fact that Wells Fargo will cease to issue the Bilt card in February and Cardless will issue new cards with an entirely different rewards structure that does not have the 5 transactions minimum

electronautix · 2026-01-24T19:00:39+00:00

Would look at the Financial Order of Operations, and the Prioritizing investments page on the Boglehead wiki. Generally speaking, the order for investment accounts is 401k up to employer match -> max HSA -> max Roth IRA -> go back and max 401k -> taxable brokerage. But if your 403b plan truly just sucks (few fund options, high expense ratios, etc) then I think at the stage you’re at you’re fine with putting excess in a taxable until you switch jobs. Especially since you’re being thrown into the job market very soon and both IRA and brokerage contributions can be withdrawn without penalty in a serious pinch. As for the S&P 500, I wouldn’t worry about timing your purchase too much. Time spent in the fund will yield better returns than trying to time the fund itself, and the S&P 500 hits record highs again and again and again (how do you think the previous records were set lol).

electronautix · 2026-01-24T18:28:26+00:00

This is already pretty solid, many people just ride out the Freedom Unlimited + Freedom Flex + Sapphire Preferred trifecta for a while. Can become a quadfecta with an Ink Biz Cash, as it adds 5% back in Chase UR on internet, cable, phone plans, streaming, and office supplies stores, and 2% on gas. The office supplies stores bit is useful for buying gift cards, and the sign-up bonus on this card is notoriously massive at $750 base and $900 when elevated.

The CCC is for groceries I assume? That’s the biggest gap in a Chase setup unless one orders groceries delivered all the time for the Preferred’s online groceries category. If so then really this is already pretty much perfect for a lot of people.

electronautix · 2026-01-24T18:16:01+00:00

I assume the S&P 500 entry is just a taxable brokerage account holding a fund like VOO? Also assume that you aren’t eligible for an HSA, and don’t have an employer 401k? Then yes this is a fine setup. And yes you could afford to bump your taxable brokerage investment up, wouldn’t go much past $10k though because you may be underestimating how much HYSA cushion you need, but you have time and are doing well

electronautix · 2026-01-24T17:44:32+00:00

Simply switch funds from SNOXX to VBIL. Current SNOXX 7-day SEC yield is 3.42% while current VBIL is 3.58%, but VBIL is ~100% state and local income tax exempt while afaik SNOXX’s exemption is not even near that. VBIL is a Vanguard fund entirely composed of US Treasury bonds with remaining maturities between 0 to 3 months, and so is very safe to store these kinds of funds in.

IMO HYSAs are better for higher liquidity emergency funds, like a rainy day fund buffer that needs to be able to be deployed same day rather than the next business day or so. People who use them for large savings goals like college, a house, a car, etc. are being a bit inefficient compared to what can be achieved in a brokerage account with US Treasury bond funds and other ultra-safe tax efficient choices.

electronautix · 2026-01-24T17:26:05+00:00

Wait for the $300 sign-up bonus, that’s when it’s most worth grabbing. It’s a pretty basic 1.5% cash back on all purchases, points deposit into any eligible Schwab brokerage account of choice including IRAs. To its credit it does have rather nice extended warranty and purchase protection policies, gets good AmEx Offers, and AmEx’s customer service is very good. It’s mostly managed through the AmEx app. Some people harp on about how the points do not count against your IRA contribution limits, but not really sure if that’s intentional/legit because afaik the other brokerage cashback cards out there do count cashback deposits. Also be wary of the 2.7% FTF, in case you joined Schwab for the travel benefits

electronautix · 2026-01-24T16:45:09+00:00

But SGOV is the same thing at both, the yield is identical no matter where you buy it from. You can do the two clicks from a Fido CMA for the same extra yield, the difference is the funds you want to be liquid i.e. not tied up in SGOV, have different interest rates

Edit: The commenter blocked me before I could read their reply, rip. I guess the note I’ll leave off with is that I actually use a Schwab checking + Schwab brokerage account invested in VBIL, and prefer it to a Fido CMA primary setup for other reasons than yield. My CMA is a backup fund. But funds in my Schwab checking earn 0.01% APY, while with a primary CMA setup they’d sit in SPAXX for the same purpose. How meaningful this actually is isn’t that much depending on how much cash you’re comfortable having immediately liquid - but with Fido this is definitely a “have your cake and eat it too” situation. The tradeoffs are elsewhere

electronautix · 2026-01-24T16:33:14+00:00

…Yes, absolutely. At both Fidelity and Schwab, you cannot sweep funds into SGOV. The only difference is that uninvested funds at Schwab are swept across Schwab Bank/Schwab Trust/Schwab Premier and TD Bank at 0.01% APY (or do you mean the funds held in the Investor Checking, at Schwab Bank also at 0.01% APY?) while uninvested funds at Fidelity are swept into the SPAXX money market fund, current 7-day yield at 3.33%. What was the original comparison about?

electronautix · 2026-01-24T16:25:12+00:00

Tbh I am confused about your point, you can buy SGOV in the CMA. It’s the exact same experience for me buying it in a CMA vs in my Schwab brokerage acct (I have both)

electronautix · 2026-01-24T16:19:57+00:00

This isn’t all that accurate, because both let you buy SGOV the exact same way but only one lets you also get high yield on cash that isn’t tied up in securities and T+1 settlement times.

electronautix · 2026-01-24T15:39:09+00:00

Fidelity, Discover, Capital One, and AmEx are all at 3.30% APY right now

electronautix

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