Ouch! Hate a surprise bill like that. It sounds like you were doing what I had mentioned in a comment earlier this year about keeping at least 1,000 in your checking as a buffer.
As always, the trick with personal finance is that it's personal. The better rule should probably be to keep an amount in checking equal to at least the largest bill you regularly pay. For my family, our mortgage is sub $400 (thank you low cost of living area), which means our 1,000 buffer is more than enough. In your situation, since your rent payment is much larger, it probably makes sense to keep at least 1,500-2000 to give yourself a bit more buffer.
Another thing I do is pay the credit card bills as they come. It's silly, but I don't like to see the bill amount going up and cash sitting in checking. I'd rather just have it paid off once a handful of transactions clear. I still have it set to autopay the previous statement balance so we don't get hit with late fees, but I'd rather smooth out the payments over the course of a month rather than one big bill. Makes things easier to keep track of since I don't strictly budget anymore, I just sweep anything leftover from my paychecks into investments or savings at the end of the month.
Ouch! Hate a surprise bill like that. It sounds like you were doing what I had mentioned in a comment earlier this year about keeping at least 1,000 in your checking as a buffer.
As always, the trick with personal finance is that it's personal. The better rule should probably be to keep an amount in checking equal to at least the largest bill you regularly pay. For my family, our mortgage is sub $400 (thank you low cost of living area), which means our 1,000 buffer is more than enough. In your situation, since your rent payment is much larger, it probably makes sense to keep at least 1,500-2000 to give yourself a bit more buffer.
Another thing I do is pay the credit card bills as they come. It's silly, but I don't like to see the bill amount going up and cash sitting in checking. I'd rather just have it paid off once a handful of transactions clear. I still have it set to autopay the previous statement balance so we don't get hit with late fees, but I'd rather smooth out the payments over the course of a month rather than one big bill. Makes things easier to keep track of since I don't strictly budget anymore, I just sweep anything leftover from my paychecks into investments or savings at the end of the month.