High yield savings/money market

[Anthony1971]

I will say it easy Interest rates stink I would NOT put my money in a CD now as the short term rates are lower than regular rates for online accounts and there is 0 reason to lock in .6% for 5 years.
simple pick an Online bank you are comfortable with there are some big names deposit your money.... There is just no reason these days to chase any rate as no rate is a guarantee it will be the same tomorrow . personally is use CIT -they do match any CD rates for me but since a few matured I left it in a regular saving as above. I also use ally bank and Barclay never had an issue with any of them . Or better cut your matress open put your money in at least it will be comfortable.

 

[BridgetBordeaux]

I'm actually a little frustrated that he wasn't more helpful. His company's money market was extremely low so his suggesting was to find a savings account for it.

Since you are understandably wanting to go more for safety, than return.................just find one of the legit bigger institutions and see which one seems to be easiest to deal with online/by phone.................and be prepared for variable rates to even go lower over the next few months.

 

[RamblingMad]

Rates are too low right now.

What did you decide to do?

 

[barkley]

I will say it easy Interest rates stink I would NOT put my money in a CD now as the short term rates are lower than regular rates for online accounts and there is 0 reason to lock in .6% for 5 years.

while i agree in principle-those rates are lower than i'm finding available at credit unions local to us. a 5 year is going for 1.10%, a 2 year is at .75% and with both they can be opened (at that guaranteed rate) for as little as $2000. if a person truly feels that they won't need the money for 2 years but wants to be able to snag some of it back 'just in case'-they could open 11 2 year cd's at $2000 each and one at $3000. the early withdrawal penalty is 180 days of dividends on the individual cd(s) that are withdrawn from-that penalty equates to allot less of a loss if you only need a few thousand in an emergency and you are pulling it from a cd that only has a few thousand in it vs. putting all your money into one single cd and getting hit with 180 days of dividend penalties on the entire $25K.

i have my cd's structured in this manner for the very purpose.

 

[Sjm9911]

Ok. So that is 1 out of how many fires? 10 000? Or more that are started by utillity lines? And thats just for pe&g. A lot of things go into starting a fire , but the state will not take responsibility or pay out for there part. Everywhere , lines go down and start fires, some worse then others. Only in cal do they hit the utillity with fines. So , ultimately, was it the utillity? Or the state for haveing oversite of the utillity? Or the state that allowed conditions on the ground that added to it? Its not as simple as they admited to it. Its also not so simple to upgrade supply lines when it has to be approved by a outside board of utilities. They shoot down a lot of costs because the ultimate cost goes to the consumer. People dont want to see there ellectric bill go up 100$ bucks a month to pay for grid upgrades , they just want cheap ellectric. For the compony, and the state its more cost effective to fix stuff as it breaks. Now to the camp fire, they admited to having old outdated equipment that contributed to the start of the fire. But in essance it wasnt there fault in totality. Unfortunately, thats all across the USA, unless we pay more for utility upgrades, this is the norm and has become acceptable. The problem in California is they dont pay to maintain or clear forests. This is a fact. I know lots of high ranking forest service guys that work all over the country, they do not have this problem. Thats because they , clear brush, dead trees and have controlled burns to get rid of excess growth. This mittagates the fire spread potential, and the damage that results because of it. Ask a fire service professional and not lawyers and bureaucrats on how to reduce fire load in forests. Its a multiprong approach. Like i said, pm me, if you want to discuss it.

THEY (P-G&E) admitted that their neglegence caused 84 deaths. This Emmy award winning documentary chronicles that. https://www.abc10.com/firepowermoney

As for investments in utilities, no need to PM. Everyone needs to educate themselves and make their own decisions before investing.

 

[tvguy]

Ok. So that is 1 out of how many fires? 10 000? Or more that are started by utillity lines? And thats just for pe&g. A lot of things go into starting a fire , but the state will not take responsibility or pay out for there part. Everywhere , lines go down and start fires, some worse then others. Only in cal do they hit the utillity with fines. So , ultimately, was it the utillity? Or the state for haveing oversite of the utillity? Or the state that allowed conditions on the ground that added to it? Its not as simple as they admited to it. Its also not so simple to upgrade supply lines when it has to be approved by a outside board of utilities. They shoot down a lot of costs because the ultimate cost goes to the consumer. People dont want to see there ellectric bill go up 100$ bucks a month to pay for grid upgrades , they just want cheap ellectric. For the compony, and the state its more cost effective to fix stuff as it breaks. Now to the camp fire, they admited to having old outdated equipment that contributed to the start of the fire. But in essance it wasnt there fault in totality. Unfortunately, thats all across the USA, unless we pay more for utility upgrades, this is the norm and has become acceptable. The problem in California is they dont pay to maintain or clear forests. This is a fact. I know lots of high ranking forest service guys that work all over the country, they do not have this problem. Thats because they , clear brush, dead trees and have controlled burns to get rid of excess growth. This mittagates the fire spread potential, and the damage that results because of it. Ask a fire service professional and not lawyers and bureaucrats on how to reduce fire load in forests. Its a multiprong approach. Like i said, pm me, if you want to discuss it.

Aging infrastructure is a problem for many utilities that have been deferred and the time is coming to pay the piper. Along the Gulf Coast utilities have gotten hammered by hurricanes and repair bills have killed them. But like any other company you can invest it, the higher risk, the higher the potential reward, or loss. Not my cup of tea in today's climate.

 

[Sjm9911]

I said it was more of a risk, but woth risk is reward. If you can find something that is stable, so dosen't move more then a few points swing in the stock price you can make money long term. So , just an idea, not saying its for everyone. So you can get like 1500 a year in dividands off 25000. Better then 250 $ in a cd. The idea is to make as much as possable to stay above inflation. But its up to the person with the money to make the final decision.

 

[LuvOrlando]

I'm not putting it anywhere that has risk. Just trying to find the safest/highest interest possible. I'm hesitant to do a CD, just in case I need it for something.

It sounds like you like the idea of a FDIC insured CD but not the idea of your money being completely tied up. Maybe do a bunch of varying amount CD's at different maturities so you can stagger liquidity but keep it as safe as possible. Have about $10K in $1K increments with short term so that you can pull what you need with a controlled loss, maybe 5 different $1K CD's at 6 months and 5 of the $1K at a year, when they mature if you realize you can tolerate more time then you can change them as. they mature or just keep rolling them as is. The other $15K I'd do in 3 $5K increments, you can do them all at the max or stagger for added flexibility, maybe two $5K CDs at 5 years and 1 $5K CD at 3 years. If you need any of it in an emergency you pull from the smaller shorter term ones first and accept the loss of interest knowing the bigger ones are there if necessary. If you think there is a good chance you will need some early just create a separate savings account for a portion and leave it in there, you can even open a savings account at another bank to make it less tempting to touch.

If you are looking for bit of info Investopedia is good for terminology and I like the way Nerdwallet skims useful observations, it always strikes me as Yelp meets Consumer Reports so I like it for filtering through the noise.

 

[Dsnydad2]

I have $1,000 I'd like to put aside and forget about. After reading through these posts, would I be correct to say the best bet is just open a savings account @ .60% apy?

I know nothing about CDs, IRA, stocks, etc... At age 50 I have no retirement, I've lived off a checking account and the future will be social security.

 

[BridgetBordeaux]

I have $1,000 I'd like to put aside and forget about. After reading through these posts, would I be correct to say the best bet is just open a savings account @ .60% apy?

I know nothing about CDs, IRA, stocks, etc... At age 50 I have no retirement, I've lived off a checking account and the future will be social security.

You are asking a good question but your comments reveal that there may be some other financial improvements you could make.

Paying down any high interest debt might be a better choice for your 1000 dollars.

At 50 with only S/S as a source of income, you still have time to make yourself stronger over the next +/-15 years.

If you are debt free (not counting a mortgage or a car payment with many months left)...................and you can set this 1000 aside and not touch it for 5 years or more............... you good use it to open up a Vanguard STAR fund account as either a regular account (which you could access anytime in the future) or as a Roth IRA (which you can access at 59.5 years old)

1000 is the minimum for some funds and the STAR fund is one of them and rated highly and has low expenses.

If you have credit card debt............put the 1000 towards that and "earn" about 10-24 percent return on your money.

If this money is the first step to a larger plan...............and your near term financial situation is very fragile............just put the money in an online savings account and let it safely sit there at about .6% until you can truly set it aside for 5 years or more and let it grow in a mutual fund.

 

[barkley]

i never thought i would see it happen..............

back in the 80's when cd rates were crazy high my mother could have paid off her home but she was getting more in interest than she was paying on her home loan. dh and i have always joked over the years 'no way that will ever be the case again'..................well, i just looked at the home loan rates at my credit union and if we still had a mortgage the rates are now lower than the cd's we locked in at 3% a couple of years ago. this is nuts.

 

[jen7233]

i never thought i would see it happen..............

back in the 80's when cd rates were crazy high my mother could have paid off her home but she was getting more in interest than she was paying on her home loan. dh and i have always joked over the years 'no way that will ever be the case again'..................well, i just looked at the home loan rates at my credit union and if we still had a mortgage the rates are now lower than the cd's we locked in at 3% a couple of years ago. this is nuts.

The rates are great right now. I hope we can lock in under three when we are ready.

I have $1,000 I'd like to put aside and forget about. After reading through these posts, would I be correct to say the best bet is just open a savings account @ .60% apy?

What's it for, just to keep it out of the way of mixed in with checking account, or to use in case of emergency? Do you plan on adding to it? If you plan to use for an emergency or think it's got a possibility to be used in the short term, I wouldn't do much more than a savings that doesn't have a lot of restrictions and has minimum requirements.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

You are asking a good question but your comments reveal that there may be some other financial improvements you could make.

Paying down any high interest debt might be a better choice for your 1000 dollars.

At 50 with only S/S as a source of income, you still have time to make yourself stronger over the next +/-15 years.

If you are debt free (not counting a mortgage or a car payment with many months left)...................and you can set this 1000 aside and not touch it for 5 years or more............... you good use it to open up a Vanguard STAR fund account as either a regular account (which you could access anytime in the future) or as a Roth IRA (which you can access at 59.5 years old)

1000 is the minimum for some funds and the STAR fund is one of them and rated highly and has low expenses.

If you have credit card debt............put the 1000 towards that and "earn" about 10-24 percent return on your money.

If this money is the first step to a larger plan...............and your near term financial situation is very fragile............just put the money in an online savings account and let it safely sit there at about .6% until you can truly set it aside for 5 years or more and let it grow in a mutual fund.

We love Vanguard!!

 

[barkley]

The rates are great right now. I hope we can lock in under three when we are ready.

with 15 year fixed going for 2.375% i think you've got a good shot at it.

 

[Dsnydad2]

If you are debt free (not counting a mortgage or a car payment with many months left)...................a

If you are debt free (not counting a mortgage or a car payment with many months left)...................and you can set this 1000 aside and not touch it for 5 years or more............... you good use it to open up a Vanguard STAR fund account as either a regular account (which you could access anytime in the future) or as a Roth

Thank you for your response!!!
Debt free, yes. Only monthly rent.

Is the Vanguard STAR available online or do I need to see a specialist? Bank?

 

[MillauFr]

That 10% dividend yield for Exxon is looking mighty appealing.

 

[cewilson13]

Thanks!

 

[BridgetBordeaux]

If you are debt free (not counting a mortgage or a car payment with many months left)...................a


Thank you for your response!!!
Debt free, yes. Only monthly rent.

Is the Vanguard STAR available online or do I need to see a specialist? Bank?

Sorry for the long silence.............I was at Disney last week and just got caught up on chores and laundry.

You can call Vanguard and/or open an account online.

They have very good customer service.

They will do a "test deposit" of a few cents into your account once or twice to verify you have linked the proper account. Then you tell them how many cents was used for each transaction.

Once verified, you can move money as you please.

 

[Princess2R]

Not sure if you are still looking but I used to work at a community bank ( now I am a mom) and we offered a free checking account that was paying 2.5% on balances up to 25k.

i opened a bunch of these accounts and it was really popular & only something offered by community banks.

Its called a kasasa checking account and to “earn” the high interest rate on your checking you’d have to do 3 things:
1- sign up for online banking and log in once a month/cycle
(Some banks make you get a direct deposit, ours did not)
2- use your debit card 10x a cycle for any amount /debit transaction
3- get e-statements instead of paper

i highly suggest looking this up to see if it is offered at a local community bank near you !
Haha not trying to sound sales- pitchy but I love this kasasa checking !

https://www.kasasa.com/

this is the website to see if a bank near you offers it

 

[Eastern]

2- use your debit card 10x a cycle for any amount /debit transaction

This is the deal breaker for me. Too much work.