Last night I realized that I did not have enough money in my bank account to pay rent. Although I had left StartupCamp that day at lunch to transfer money from one bank account to another by hand, for some reason I was $2.18 short of the rent amount. The check I deposited on Monday had not cleared yet! I knew that rent was going to post sometime today, but there was no way to ensure that the rent would not post before other incoming transfers would clear.
“Do you have any cash?” I asked my wife. “I only have $2. We still need 18 cents to cover the rent.” She checked her purse, and she found $15. So at 11:55 PM we drove to Wells Fargo and deposited the money to make sure that our rent deposit would clear. The day was saved.
Now let me give you a little background:
For the past 5 months since I left my position with Active Reasoning, I have been without something that so many people depend on - a paycheck. My wife has been working at CityTeam, an incredible non-profit that my wife and I love, but her paycheck is not enough to cover all our expenses. So, like many entrepreneurs before me, I live off my savings account and investments in the stock market.
My wife and I live on a strict budget, and I use a very efficient system to manage my money between investments, savings and checking accounts (all with different institutions). Unfortunately, having two checking accounts, three savings accounts and one investment account (not counting retirement accounts) generates considerable complexity in transferring money. The fact that we basically have no money in any of these accounts only makes matters worse.
The irony of all this is that today, on the day that I almost failed to pay my rent, our corporate bank account for Mixbook.com was filled with cash from the first closing of our seed financing round. The salary that I will take from the company still puts me well below the federal poverty line (especially in Santa Clara County), but at least now my family no longer has a “burn rate.” 
Updated.
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