ok, I've looked around on the web and even on this forum, I found numerous discussions on this topic "should I invest my emergency fund or keep it in cash" most topics on here are from years ago, and mostly reference 1% or less interest.
so here's my situation:
$590,000 invested in retirement accounts (83% stocks, 8% bonds, 7% reits, 2% cash) plus $50,000 in a taxable brokerage account (with similar allocations).
$28,900 in cash, in two high interest FDIC savings accounts. One pays ($18,400) 2.48% the other ($10,500) 2%. (the reason for two, the latter was offering me $500 to open it with 10k, so I took the free money at 2% and I've now held it long enough to close the account and keep my money)
I have 2 credit cards with a combined $45,000 credit. I use one card almost exclusively to pay for everything and get 2% cash back, the other card i use only for my cell phone bill just to keep a revolving credit on it each month, all bills are paid at the end of each month, I never pay interest. the rate is ridiculous @ 24% despite my 820 credit score.
We try to live off of about $50,000 per year, of that $34,000 is for basics (mortgage, car payment, utilities, food, etc) We hold about $5,000 in our checking from month to month. paychecks go in, bills come out and anything above 5K at the end of each month I move to my brokerage account to be invested.
and lastly our goals: I am 46, wife is 43, investing like crazy to FIRE by 55. new car paid off by 50, house paid off by 55.
Now that that is out of the way....my idea is simply, why do I need to hold the $28k in cash? If I invest it into my taxable brokerage, it'll grow faster than the 2.48% (which is a great percent for an FDIC savings account to be quite honest) and I'll still have access to a lot of money in case of an emergency. If need be I can always charge the expense to my credit card and then liquidate some funds from the taxable account to pay the credit card bill.
In my Roth's (mine and my wife's) we have a combined $100,000 in contributions that we could take out if necessary.
we have life insurance, we have disability insurance through my employer.
anyone have an opinion on basically deleting my high interest savings "emergency fund" to put it in my taxable brokerage account?