In a resounding continuation of the theme of the year thus far for churners and MSers, a fresh wave of shutdowns hit this morning. As always, sorry to those affected, especially to a very well respected member of the community that was creating a lot of win-win opportunities.

But the blog isn’t called chasing shutdowns (although it may be soon), so let’s get back to some actionable advice. This one is more for folks in the beginner to intermediate range, but is a helpful thing to keep in mind for more advanced people as well.

As you work your way up the MS ladder, you’ll eventually find yourself in a situation where you have to float money. The most common occurrence is with something like a buyers group – you are fronting the money you paid for the item until they get around to paying you out. 

Normally, this isn’t a big deal since only the worst buyers groups take so long to issue payment that you have to pay your credit card bill first (or they have a cashflow problem and you should stay far away), although it’s not fun from a psychological perspective.

There’s other less obvious things that could kind of count as a float risk – even an asset like points that haven’t been cashed out yet that were earned in a way likely to cause ire with a bank is floating, in a way. 

However, this post isn’t about floating – it’s about the perception of floating and a mindset you need to get out of unless you want to get shutdown for kiting (but let’s be honest, you’re probably going to get shutdown for something else because it’s 2025). 

Another aspect of becoming a bigger fish is that your money tends to be spread out. Between a myriad of targets, the multitude of bank accounts you probably have open, maybe even parked funds for a bonus, there’s a lot of places your money could be.

Earlier in your churning career, that’s going to feel uncomfortable. You’re used to a hub account where the displayed balance is what you have – no need to break out a calculator to determine your cash reserves. 

Keeping track of a bunch of balances is annoying, I won’t deny that. Using a budgeting tool like Monarch can help to a degree, but once you’re advanced and have a new car’s worth of money tied up in some obscure fintech you’re not sure even physically exists, it’s going to take some actual manual math to determine your net worth. 

But here’s the thing – obscure fintechs and memecoins aside, the vast majority of banks, credit unions and other places you are moving money between do show up on budgeting tools, while money owed to you by a buyers group or precious metals dealer does not.

That’s because you aren’t actually floating money in this case – while it’s not in your hub account, the money is still yours, and you can control it. That’s not the same as floating the dollar value of 25,000 Amazon Fire Sticks to a rented warehouse in New Hampshire. 

The reason I say all of this is to help you keep these intermediary accounts and targets alive longer. I see a lot of people losing valuable liquidation options and helpful bank accounts, and it’s often due to erroneously feeling a need to get it back into a hub account as quickly as possible.

Again, I understand the psychological urge to run the loop and have your money back where it started. But you need to resist that urge – ironically, the true way you’d lose control of money in a separate account is doing something suspicious to get your account locked.

So what’s the move? Well, most normal people do things like pay bills or buy stuff with an account – not deposit and withdraw in quick succession like you’re trying to take part in this famous festival in Ahmedabad. 

Next time you pull up your hub account and cringe at a lower than expected balance, take solace in the fact that you’re keeping your plays and loops around longer by practicing patience and being thoughtful in how you move money around. 

Heeding this advice will help you keep some of the secondary platforms that are often low hanging fruit around longer.

ચીયર્સ!