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Is that 4.76% a remnant from the early 2008 era? A 5 year CD?
Because I don't remember the last time I saw a CD rate that high in over 2 to 3 years that wasn't under 3 years.
I do have a question, how do you keep up with all those CDs? That's about 26 CDs opened a year?
I'm very, VERY curious how you keep up with them.
And Ally lets you get $100 CDs? I might need to check this out.
Although, is this just something mental you are doing to save 100 bucks? Because wondering if .85 cents is worth the trouble. Although if you have 26 CDs, I guess that's 22.10 a year?
You're driving my math crazy right now.
Follow my financial journey: http://www.frugalrican.com
I love the idea in theory - basically a revolving savings account, but would dread the maintenance... I prefer a savings acount that I set to be inaccessible from ATMs and hidden from me online...
Then again, I dreaded credit scoring for the longest time, and it may now be the healthiest addiction I have
Kudos for having a healthy habit!
SynnDiesel - I do an Excel spreadsheet - well actually two tables on one sheet.
The first table looks like this:
CD Bingo | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
January | N 20, 21 | I 01 | ||||||
February | Annuity | |||||||
March | U 02 | |||||||
April | ||||||||
May | Annuity | |||||||
June | U 01 | U 03, 04 | A 01 | |||||
July | N 01 - 03 | AM 01 | A 02 | |||||
August | N 04 - 08 | |||||||
September | P 01 | N 09 -12 | ||||||
October | N 13, 14 | A 03 | ||||||
November | N 15, 16 | Am 02 | ||||||
December | P 02, U 01 | N 17 - 19 | AY 01, 02 |
It shows what CD's mature in what month, in what year. I have just taken the first letter of each bank where the CD is at. I number each CD at each place. ie - AY = Ally. I have two CD's at Ally, so AY 01, AY 02.
The other table looks like this:
CD | Amount | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
A 01 | $523.14 | $523.14 | ||||||
A 02 | $596.94 | $596.94 | ||||||
A 03 | $579.19 | $576.95 | ||||||
AM 01 | $973.66 | $973.66 | ||||||
AM 02 | $100.27 | $100.27 | ||||||
AY 01 | $100.08 | $100.08 | ||||||
AY 02 | $100.22 | $100.22 | ||||||
I 01 | $1,041.12 | $1,041.12 | ||||||
N 01 | $3,050.66 | $3,050.66 | ||||||
N 02 | $3,047.35 | $3,047.35 | ||||||
N 03 | $3,047.35 | $3,047.35 | ||||||
N 04 | $111.51 | $111.51 | ||||||
N 06 | $100.33 | $100.33 | ||||||
N 08 | $145.87 | $145.87 | ||||||
N 09 | $145.79 | $145.79 | ||||||
N 10 | $172.78 | $172.78 | ||||||
N 12 | $123.69 | $123.69 | ||||||
N 13 | $102.97 | $102.97 | ||||||
N 14 | $107.78 | $107.78 | ||||||
N 15 | $102.14 | $102.14 | ||||||
N 16 | $103.67 | $103.67 | ||||||
N 17 | $102.03 | $102.03 | ||||||
N 18 | $100.08 | $100.08 | ||||||
N 19 | $108.39 | $108.39 | ||||||
N 20 | $100.39 | $- | $100.39 | |||||
N 21 | $100.01 | $100.01 | ||||||
N 22 | ||||||||
U 02 | $444.58 | $444.58 | ||||||
U 03 | $359.46 | $359.46 | ||||||
U 04 | $251.14 | $251.14 | ||||||
Total | $15,942.59 | $11,727.57 | $200.40 | $1,041.12 | $1,173.96 | $1,797.30 | $- | $- |
Part two.
SynnDiesel - with both tables, it's really easy to update and keep track of what I have.
At a glance, I can see what month & year CD's will mature.
At a glance, I can see how much money will be "maturing" in a year. The goal is to have at least 10k a year mature. Then I will grow that to 20k a year. And so on.
And so things don't get way out of hand, once I have about 4 CD's a month maturing, I will start adding paycheck money to them instead of opening new ones.
Some of the CD's have more money in them than just a $100 --- when I find that I have a stash of money, or can gather something together, I will open an "oddball CD" somewhere - whoever has the highest rates for that amount of money.
Yes, Ally lets you open up CD's for a $100. They have two of mine right now. Ally's best deal at the time I opened mine were to do a 4 yr, change your rate CD. During the course of 4 yrs, I can up my rate to whatever is current two times. A thing to note about Ally's CD's - they deposit interest quarterly, not monthly BUT you can see what you are earning as it accrues before it's deposited quarterly.
85 cents is more than or equal to any savings account out there. So why not put it into a CD.
One of the perks to my having done CD bingo is I had two CD's that equaled about 4k at maturity that I cashed out and put into my house account. I was soooo close to reaching a 20% down payment, plus closing costs and those CD's made it possible. (House deal - no go, but those CD's certainly helped out!). So now I am scouting for a really good rate (hahaha) to reinvest that 4k I had cashed out.
With the varied interest rates, I am earning substainally more than $22.10 a year. I know it's hard to calculate just how much.... If you really want to know, PM me. I will tell you how much I earn in interest. It may only seem like pennies and nickels initially, but those guys turn into dollars and add up!
And I LOVE my excel tables - it does the math for me.
cassembler - I love the idea of a hidden account. I actually have one called a secret savings account that I look at once or twice a year. I don't do ATM cards or check visa cards. So all of my bank accounts are protected that way.
Knowing in the back of your mind that you will have access to emergency cash every one to two weeks is an amazing security blanket. And being able to go to the bank and have them print off a sheet showing all accounts (this includes CD's) to show to lenders helps lenders have confidence that you are financially responsible, can save, and definitely have reserves if things go wrong.
Maybe I shared too much information.
I just find it easy to save money this way and the rate is better than most savings accounts. And it adds up quickly. The CD's and the interest. Use a table or two in excel and it's easy to track when, where, and how much will mature.
Questions?
Ally and Navy let you open CD's with as little as $100. (with restrictions, Navy has one you can open with as little as $50.) AND Navy lets you add as little as a penny to each CD.
USAA lets you open CD with as little as $250. AND you can add to the balance in increments of $25.
Amex lets you open a CD with as little as you want. Yes, you can open up a CD for a $1.00
I know, I am on a roll...
Think of a CD as a renewable resource. It keeps growing and growing and growing. It rolls over.
A savings account can be depleted in a day, money gone forever...
@IOBA wrote:Ally and Navy let you open CD's with as little as $100. (with restrictions, Navy has one you can open with as little as $50.) AND Navy lets you add as little as a penny to each CD.
USAA lets you open CD with as little as $250. AND you can add to the balance in increments of $25.
Amex lets you open a CD with as little as you want. Yes, you can open up a CD for a $1.00
Hey, I was looking into this a few weeks ago, inspired by your thread.
Does Ally let you open repeated, separate CD's? In other words, is it practical to use Ally to open a new and independent CD every two weeks? Or do they get snippy at you?
There are a lot of cranky responses on their website, and I don't know if it's justified, or if they just have a lot of confused new members.
IOBA, I'm going to have to save this thread for myself.
I'm putting down 100 a month into my emergency fund while I get my CC balance down to 0.
Once the CC balance is down to 0, I'm going to put that extra monthly money towards this idea. I really like it a lot and thanks for being so explicit about the details.
The spreadsheet definitely is a must with a system like this.
Awesome, awesome set-up.
Follow my financial journey: http://www.frugalrican.com
haulingthescoreup - no, Ally doesn't get snippy. None of them do. If they ask questions, (which is unlikely since you can do everything online) then when you explain to them the system, how you want to build your relationship with them AND build up reserves to so that every week or two weeks, you know you could access emergency fund (cd's maturing), they think it's really cool. There are quite a few bank employees that are doing the same thing now.
SynnDiesel - that's a great idea. Are you banking with Ally or Navy or any other bank that would allow you to open a CD with a small amount of money? If they would, maybe you can put $25-50 into a CD per month and keep the rest in savings. It's important to have both - cash savings, as well as a revolving CD door. NOT that you would cash out the CD's, you want them to roll over, but it's great to have that security blanket.
If the CD idea is seen in print - that was me - I didn't steal the idea (it was published).
@IOBA wrote:
SynnDiesel - that's a great idea. Are you banking with Ally or Navy or any other bank that would allow you to open a CD with a small amount of money? If they would, maybe you can put $25-50 into a CD per month and keep the rest in savings. It's important to have both - cash savings, as well as a revolving CD door. NOT that you would cash out the CD's, you want them to roll over, but it's great to have that security blanket.
If the CD idea is seen in print - that was me - I didn't steal the idea (it was published).
The only banks I bank with do a $500 minimum and right now, that'd put a huge dent in my emergency fund. But doing something like 50 to 100 every month is a little more plausible, specially after the way you explained it.
But I'll look into Ally.
Follow my financial journey: http://www.frugalrican.com