Savings account

[Anonymous]

If somebody is looking for the best interest rate on a savings account, that's a particular form of a more general question, which is:

How can I make money from bank accounts?

The best way I know of right now to do that is to look for sign up deals on checking and savings accounts.  It involves a little bit of work, but you can make quite a lot of money, especially if you couple it with opening a few credit cards that have huge signup bonuses.  (You combine CC funding of the new bank accounts with the new cards.)  I haven't added up all the money I made in the last six months doing that, but it was a LOT.  Maybe 3k or more?

Compare that with making the interest you make in a 1% savings account.  1% of a 10k balance is $100.

[Anonymous]

Love my Barclays Dream account @ 1.05%.

Opened it up about 6 months ago, and have made more in interest already than I would of made with Chase over like 100 years.

There is a $1000 a month cap which was irritating for me as I wanted to dump a much larger sum in there, but on the upside it does teach me to try and max it out every month which is a good habit to start for the longterm.

Also considering opening up an Ally account for the larger sum I cannot 'fit' into my Dream account for now. 

Barclays has a pretty bad rep overseas so I will feel a little better opening up an Ally account and supporting an American company that is based in the same state as me too.

[-NewGuy-]

I would say Alliant. You can open a checking account that gives you $20 in ATM rebates a month and .647% on checking, and. .995%

[Anonymous]

I have a MySavingsDirect account. When I opened it, it paid 1.25% but now it is down to 1%, same as Ally. Atr same rate, I would go with Ally just because they likely have slightly better customer service.

I'm happy with MSD and unless the Ally rate starts beating it I will stick with it.

[Irisa]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I'm looking for ideas on savings accounts. I currently have Chase (0.01% APY) that was opened when I first opened my checking account. After learning that there are banks that offer WAAYYY more, I'm just curious as to what kind of account everyone has, and if anyone has any suggestions. I've seen the list of banks and their APY's on bankrate. I'm just looking for feedback. Thanks!

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I have a savings account with Barclays, rate is 1% and another with Discover. The rate on Discover is .95%, but if I had to choose between the two, I would go with Discover. 

[baller4life]

Ally

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

@Anonymous my Barclays Dream account @ 1.05%.

Opened it up about 6 months ago, and have made more in interest already than I would of made with Chase over like 100 years.

There is a $1000 a month cap which was irritating for me as I wanted to dump a much larger sum in there, but on the upside it does teach me to try and max it out every month which is a good habit to start for the longterm.

Also considering opening up an Ally account for the larger sum I cannot 'fit' into my Dream account for now. 

Barclays has a pretty bad rep overseas so I will feel a little better opening up an Ally account and supporting an American company that is based in the same state as me too.

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+1 To using the dream account from Barclay's. It's great; clear, easy and fast setup. 1.05% + bonus interest even though it may be small, I enjoy being rewarded for actually using my savings accnt as a savings accnt lol.

If the max $1,000 deposit is an issue, you could open a second or even third dream account. I've read that others have done this without a problem. But I do understand wanting to support local/domestic business.

[800ficogirl]

I have the NF special rate 12 month CD and it yields 3%. On the downside, it has a max balance of $3000 which I have already reach =\,.. Moving forward I'm looking for either another CD or high yield savings to dump $$$ in each month.. Thanks to everyone to advised Barclay,.. I have a Barclay credit card so I wouldn't mind continuing business,. However I did kinda want to see all my money housed together so I can see that big number" at years end. The only other other is starting an IRA,.. NF has a 20 month IRA @ 2% and they give you $100 sign up,. Not sure how I feel about IRAs though, won't I lose money if the stock market fails?

[Anonymous]

Hello 800FG.  :-) 

Yes, you will lose money if the stock market falls -- assuming that you had your IRA money in stocks and assuming that that this particular stock fund (in which you had your money) fell.  (The market as a whole could fall, and yet your fund could rise.)

But it is important to remember that the stock market rises and falls constantly.  For example, it's very likely that any particular stock fund might rise at some point today and then fall and then rise and then fall.  All in one day.  So the very nature of investing in stocks is that your investment will lose value at some point.

The key question to ask yourself is timeline.  If you were to put (say) $5000 in your IRA, how long are you certain you could leave it there before you might need to take it out again?  Remember that IRA stands for Individual Retirement Account.  The IRA was originally created so that a person could put money in it and then leave it there for a long time.  For example, she could put the money in when she was 40 and then not need to draw in it till she was 60.  That's 20 years!  That's a long time and as long you make reasonably diverse investments (there's easy ways to do that) you are 99.9% certain to come out substantially better than if you placed the money in a CD.

If, however, you need the money in one year, then a high yield savings account or CD is better, since investing in a broad index stock fund could still lose money in a short time.

[800ficogirl]

Thank you for that detailed reply. It really helped me see the big picture. The one Im planning to sign up with is a 20 month IRA, however I do plan to keep it there for the long haul.. I will call NFCU today and sign up.. I do believe I need a IRA