i use my futures account for income. (even though I have another fulltime job)
each week, I extract profits on friday via ACH
my futures account is never allowed to get over 15k... i like to keep it between 5k and 10k, which is more than enough to trade 1-3 cars of YM
this way, if I ever "blow out" my account, it doesn't suck because I have shuttled out profits constantly, and the sum value in my futures account is but a %age of that, the profits already shuttled out. the profits go into very conservative type investments. i have shares in BA, MO, PG, some Gold, some bonds, some money market, etc.
*if* i ever blow it out, i will refund it with 3k and limit myself to 1 car trades for 3 months as a form of discipline