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Super High Interest Savings - Insight?

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CBartowski
Frequent Contributor

Super High Interest Savings - Insight?

So throughout my research I've found a few lesser known Banks and CUs that offer 2%-6% on savings for their members. Many of them come with strings such as X amount transactions on their debit cards and CCs but nothing that would see too serious. I was curious if ayone has had any luck with any of these:

 

This post serves to inform everyone and ask for insights.

 

Anyway, there are a bunch more but throught I'd throw these out. I'm mainly interested in CCU.

 

Thanks everyone!

CARDS:
AMEX CS Plat | NSL -- Chase Freedom Flex | $19,000
AMEX Gold | NSL -- Citi Double Cash | $10,000
AMEX HH NAF | $1,000 -- Uber Visa | $5,000
CSR | $29,000 -- USAA Plat | $8,000
USAA AMEX | $23,000 -- MB Boundless | $11,900 -- CFU | $3,600 -- PenFed Pathfinder | $10,000 -- MS Plat | NSL

BANKS:
NFCU | USAA | PenFed | Schwab Bank | First Bank | Chase
Message 1 of 6
5 REPLIES 5
DaveInAZ
Senior Contributor

Re: Super High Interest Savings - Insight?

  • Consumer's Credit Union/CCU (up to 4.59% up to $20k)

 You need to jump through some serious hoops to get those high APRs:

- 3.09% up to $10k: 12 debit card transactions monthly, transactions posted as credit w/no PIN;  PLUS one direct deposit OR one ACH debit OR pay one bill; PLUS eDocuments

- 3.59% up to $15k: Meet all the above PLUS $500 per mo. spend on their Visa CC

- 4.59% up to $20k: Meet the 3.09% requirements PLUS $1k spend per month on their Visa CC

 

  • Mango (6% up to $5k)

This one has been pretty much nerfed. Now to get that 6% you need to have $800 in direct deposit, it used to be $500. But if you ACH any of that out you lose the 6%, you can only pull money out with the debit card. Plus there's a $3 monthly fee, $2 per ATM transaction.

 

  • CIT (1.85% up to $250k)

Not bad, but a money market account limited to 6 transactions per month, so it's account to stash savings, not use as a primary spend account. And they sure spend a ton of $$$ on internet advertising, I see their ads everywhere but I have a bunch of banking cookies in my cache.

 

Thanks for posting this, it's great to let folks know what options are out there. I'm just pointing out some of the requirements to get the high interest (but I'm old enough to never call 4-6% savings interest as "super high"). And I'm not a fan of being forced to jump through hoops to get something, especially debit card transactions.And I'm not a fan of the pre-paid debit cards like Insight, Netspend & Mango - they're basically predatory banking targeted towards who can't get or don't want "traditional" banking accounts. They make their money off charging you fees for using the cards and entice you with higher interest savings accounts tied to the cards, but as more folks take advantage of the savings inerest and avoid the card fees through exposure in sites like Doctor of Credit they tend to get nerfed.

 

I prefer to keep things simple, like the DCU 5% savings account up to $1k (I have my car loan thru them so the savings account was easy peasy), and Premier Members CU 4% Money Market up to $2k. And Memory Bank as a primary spend account, 1.6% on checking w/unlimited transactions and no debit or other requirements to get that 1.6%. And Memory Bank has a very easy $100 SUB, just use code TA2018 and make three ACH deposits of $200.01+.

 

Message 2 of 6
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Super High Interest Savings - Insight?

Yeah, I'm not a fan of jumping through hoops to get certain interest rates. I know some people enjoy doing it so to each their own, but for me it isn't worth the time, potential money and stress behind it.

 

But thanks for posting that is super helpful so everyone knows what's out there.

Message 3 of 6
CBartowski
Frequent Contributor

Re: Super High Interest Savings - Insight?

Thanks Dave!

 

You are 100% right about all the hoops. I'm really just looking for the best place to shash cash. Current NFCU MM only gives .6% which at the time, was much higher than my .01% or whatever with USAA. Now I'm growing out of my "bank bambi" stage and seeing what else is out there. CIT may not be a terrible place just to park some cash. However, I have also been considering the Fieldity cash mgmt with 2% card paradigm. 

 

Still have some research and soul searching to do.

 

Thanks agin.

CARDS:
AMEX CS Plat | NSL -- Chase Freedom Flex | $19,000
AMEX Gold | NSL -- Citi Double Cash | $10,000
AMEX HH NAF | $1,000 -- Uber Visa | $5,000
CSR | $29,000 -- USAA Plat | $8,000
USAA AMEX | $23,000 -- MB Boundless | $11,900 -- CFU | $3,600 -- PenFed Pathfinder | $10,000 -- MS Plat | NSL

BANKS:
NFCU | USAA | PenFed | Schwab Bank | First Bank | Chase
Message 4 of 6
iced
Valued Contributor

Re: Super High Interest Savings - Insight?


@DaveInAZ wrote:
  • Consumer's Credit Union/CCU (up to 4.59% up to $20k)

 You need to jump through some serious hoops to get those high APRs:

- 3.09% up to $10k: 12 debit card transactions monthly, transactions posted as credit w/no PIN;  PLUS one direct deposit OR one ACH debit OR pay one bill; PLUS eDocuments

- 3.59% up to $15k: Meet all the above PLUS $500 per mo. spend on their Visa CC

- 4.59% up to $20k: Meet the 3.09% requirements PLUS $1k spend per month on their Visa CC

 

  • Mango (6% up to $5k)

This one has been pretty much nerfed. Now to get that 6% you need to have $800 in direct deposit, it used to be $500. But if you ACH any of that out you lose the 6%, you can only pull money out with the debit card. Plus there's a $3 monthly fee, $2 per ATM transaction.

 

  • CIT (1.85% up to $250k)

Not bad, but a money market account limited to 6 transactions per month, so it's account to stash savings, not use as a primary spend account. And they sure spend a ton of $$$ on internet advertising, I see their ads everywhere but I have a bunch of banking cookies in my cache.

 

Thanks for posting this, it's great to let folks know what options are out there. I'm just pointing out some of the requirements to get the high interest (but I'm old enough to never call 4-6% savings interest as "super high"). And I'm not a fan of being forced to jump through hoops to get something, especially debit card transactions.And I'm not a fan of the pre-paid debit cards like Insight, Netspend & Mango - they're basically predatory banking targeted towards who can't get or don't want "traditional" banking accounts. They make their money off charging you fees for using the cards and entice you with higher interest savings accounts tied to the cards, but as more folks take advantage of the savings inerest and avoid the card fees through exposure in sites like Doctor of Credit they tend to get nerfed.

 

I prefer to keep things simple, like the DCU 5% savings account up to $1k (I have my car loan thru them so the savings account was easy peasy), and Premier Members CU 4% Money Market up to $2k. And Memory Bank as a primary spend account, 1.6% on checking w/unlimited transactions and no debit or other requirements to get that 1.6%. And Memory Bank has a very easy $100 SUB, just use code TA2018 and make three ACH deposits of $200.01+.

 


Isn't the whole point of a savings account to be NOT to spend it? If so, the 6 transactions per month should be more than enough. Ideally, it should be 0 transactions per month most of the time.

 

Of the options the OP listed, the Citi is probably the best one since it has no hoops to jump through and is the only one with a reasonable limit on the rate. I agree the DCU 5% on $1,000 is nice, and I also use it, but the rate after $1,000 is not good and $1,000 is far too low of a limit to make it viable for anyone as an option for a single savings account. People going this route should have a second savings account somewhere else for the overflow.

 

There's also a lot of close options with no limits and no hoops, similar to Memory Bank. Barclays just upped their rate to 1.65% with no limit and no requirements on the amount.

Message 5 of 6
Cookiegrabber
Regular Contributor

Re: Super High Interest Savings - Insight?

Just throwing this out there in case you want to get your kid some savings -- Chevron FCU has a 7% APY up to $1k savings acct for members 21 years and younger. Doesn't look like there are any hoops, either, other than to opt out of paper statements.

 

https://www.chevronfcu.org/checking-savings/member-savings


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