Whats the highest savings account interest rate, and CD interest rate, you know of?
Asked by
tedd (
14088
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March 1st, 2011
I have recently put together a budget, originally for the intent of seeing if I could afford a new car (which thankfully I could), but now I’m hoping to maintain one to simply be more organized. As part of this I want to implement a savings plan that I have done a few times in the past. Basically the plan is to save $25 or so dollars a week in a savings account, and when it gets to $500—$600 I empty it into a CD with good interest, then repeat, while rolling over the CD’s as they mature.
Well in the past the problem that always happened, was that I’d get a few hundred saved up and some emergency cost would come into play. A tire blew out one time, a room mate didn’t pay his chunk of the rent and the rest of us had to cover his to not get evicted, etc, etc, etc. BUT, now I find myself in a more stable position, and if my budget works out I plan to start putting money away again following the same plan.
The question basically is, what are the highest savings account and CD account, interest rates you know of? They would have to be the type I could open over the internet or at a national bank that would have a branch here (unless you know of a smaller bank/credit Union that would allow me to set up an account over the phone or what not). I had been using an Orange account online, but they changed their interest rates so I’m trying to look around again.
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12 Answers
Right now some high yield savings accounts are the better choice.
You will not find much of a fluctuation by more than a ½ percent or so, likely much less.
I dropped my Cd’s last year and put all my savings in a high yield and liquid savings acct.
Rates are comp. to cd’s & money market accounts.
I also lent 10k to a friend for 8 weeks with a $500 return of interest.
Short term loan sharking to friends or family is another option, IF, the trust is there and they have proved sound in the past.
@Coloma you lend your friends money at 32.5%APR? What rate do you lend to your enemies?
I’ve never understood the point of savings accounts in regard to their return rate as the mount of money you earn is quite negligible. It’s a great idea to save, but until you have enough money for the interest rate to matter, just focus on customer service. Once you have enough money, forget about CD’s and Savings accounts and invest in mutual funds.
@Coloma, I’m intrigued of your definition of friend if you are willing to loan shark them.
@SuppRatings I have an employer backed 401k, and in the long term I am looking into the idea of mutual funds or what have you in the stock market. But frankly I don’t trust “all” of my savings in the stock market.
@SuppRatings People keep savings accounts as emergency funds. They are liquid. Totally different from retirement accounts that would contain mutual funds.
ING Direct (ingdirect.com) and Ally Bank (ally.com) typically have some of the highest interest rates for savings and CDs. It looks like they are at 1.00% and 1.05% respectively at the moment. Also check out bankrate.com where you can search for banks by a number of criteria, including interest rates.
@gorillapaws: isn’t that just 5% interest in one period though? Doesn’t seem like an unreasonable price for a $10k loan.
@bolwerk it still works out to 32.5%APR, which is very high. The problem is that 5% is a reasonable interest rate for a year, not for 2 months. To put things in perspective, ignoring compounding, at the current savings rate it would take 5 years of 10k being in a savings account to generate what @Coloma charged her friend for a 2 month loan.
@tedd if you factor in inflation, you’re probably loosing money by buying CD’s. If you’re young, you would be wise to put your money in the market where losses can quickly be recovered, and early gains can result in 10’s or 100’s of thousands of dollars more when you retire. Take a look at compounding interest and what it can do over time.
It’s been years since I saw a CD over 0.79%, so forget about those. Local credit unions tend to have decent rates compared to large national banks, so you might want to look in that direction.
@gorillapaws If a person can’t even get approved for a sub-prime car loan, it may be worth it to them to pay that much. The better your credit, the cheaper everything is, and at some point, they give you stuff of your score is high enough; a position only the rich cam get into easily. For those with poor credit, the only choice is to pay a hefty surcharge for things; often enough to cause a snowball effect as their bills exceed their meager ability to repay and perpetuate their poverty.
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@SuppRatings
@GorillaPaws
Semantics. For lack of a better description. Meant partly in humor, and partly in truth.
The ‘friend’ is a longterm friend and they set the interest rate, A win/win situation.
Nothing wrong with that! :-)
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