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For those of you looking for a great place to park your money, try this one: www.mysavingsdirect.com it's now up to 2.4% for a online savings account, that is

For those of you looking for a great place to park your money, try this one: www.mysavingsdirect.com it's now up to 2.4% for a online savings account, that is FDIC insured. i've been using them for 2 years now, and it's been awesome. As far as i know, 2.4% is the highest there is for online accounts. i'm surprised they don't top the list on nerdwallet.com

fpgaminer 8y ago
As general word of caution: is that extra fraction of interest worth the hassle/risk of dealing with a less known bank? What I mean is, banks like Ally offer both near-highest interest rates, are well established, and provide a nice experience. Your savings account is bread and butter in your financial life. Using some "janky" bank just to squeeze few dollars probably isn't a good use of your time. I'm not saying mysavingsdirect.com is "janky"; I really have no idea about them. But I've seen a number of higher interest bank accounts and turned them down because they were from unknown vendors. As an example, I was pissed at Ally and needed a new vendor. I decided to try Discover Bank, figuring they'd be good with a well established reputation like Discover, and with the same interest rates as Ally. But the experience has been decidedly worse. Slower deposits and transfers, for example. Also worth noting that usually you shouldn't be carrying a lot in savings anyway. Excess cash should be sitting in investments and doing work. So savings accounts will only be carrying emergency funds et al. If you've got, say, $12k in your account, an extra 0.4% is only going to give you a few extra bucks a year. Is a few extra bucks worth working with a lesser bank? Or, to the focus of the original article, is a few extra bucks worth working with an uninsured bank? I advise extreme caution when it comes to savings accounts, which are explicitly for "safe" money in a health financial portfolio.
- pascalxus 8y ago
  Well, if you're saving very aggressively to buy a house in the near future, it makes a lot of sense, especially in places where housing is extremely expensive. Slow deposits and transfers are not a problem at all. You only need to transfer in or out maybe a few times per year at the very most. i'm not sure what you mean with "janky"
whitepoplar 8y ago
Or you can open a Fidelity/Schwab account and buy U.S. Government T-Bills with no transaction costs or markup. 6-month T-Bills are currently yielding 2.54% and they're exempt from state taxes.
- pascalxus 8y ago
  but how do those work. do you have to keep buying them every 6 months, or can you just leave it there while it keeps providing interest at that rate? and will those rates continue to go up? mysavingsdirect has for the last 2 or 3 years shown they're commited to staying at the highest rates.
  - whitepoplar 8y ago
    Checking/Savings rates are highly correlated to Treasury yields, so if Treasury yields go down, so will yields on checking and savings accounts. To answer your first question--if you go with Fidelity, they offer an "auto roll" feature which can re-purchase new T-Bills (or any Treasury/CD) at auction, automatically, when existing issues mature. It's completely hands-off: https://www.fidelity.com/fixed-income-bonds/fixed-income-tools-services/auto-roll-program https://www.fidelity.com/fixed-income-bonds/fixed-income-too...

fpgaminer 8y ago

As general word of caution: is that extra fraction of interest worth the hassle/risk of dealing with a less known bank? What I mean is, banks like Ally offer both near-highest interest rates, are well established, and provide a nice experience. Your savings account is bread and butter in your financial life. Using some "janky" bank just to squeeze few dollars probably isn't a good use of your time. I'm not saying mysavingsdirect.com is "janky"; I really have no idea about them. But I've seen a number of higher interest bank accounts and turned them down because they were from unknown vendors. As an example, I was pissed at Ally and needed a new vendor. I decided to try Discover Bank, figuring they'd be good with a well established reputation like Discover, and with the same interest rates as Ally. But the experience has been decidedly worse. Slower deposits and transfers, for example. Also worth noting that usually you shouldn't be carrying a lot in savings anyway. Excess cash should be sitting in investments and doing work. So savings accounts will only be carrying emergency funds et al. If you've got, say, $12k in your account, an extra 0.4% is only going to give you a few extra bucks a year. Is a few extra bucks worth working with a lesser bank? Or, to the focus of the original article, is a few extra bucks worth working with an uninsured bank? I advise extreme caution when it comes to savings accounts, which are explicitly for "safe" money in a health financial portfolio.

pascalxus 8y ago
Well, if you're saving very aggressively to buy a house in the near future, it makes a lot of sense, especially in places where housing is extremely expensive. Slow deposits and transfers are not a problem at all. You only need to transfer in or out maybe a few times per year at the very most. i'm not sure what you mean with "janky"

whitepoplar 8y ago

Or you can open a Fidelity/Schwab account and buy U.S. Government T-Bills with no transaction costs or markup. 6-month T-Bills are currently yielding 2.54% and they're exempt from state taxes.

pascalxus 8y ago
but how do those work. do you have to keep buying them every 6 months, or can you just leave it there while it keeps providing interest at that rate? and will those rates continue to go up? mysavingsdirect has for the last 2 or 3 years shown they're commited to staying at the highest rates.
- whitepoplar 8y ago
  Checking/Savings rates are highly correlated to Treasury yields, so if Treasury yields go down, so will yields on checking and savings accounts. To answer your first question--if you go with Fidelity, they offer an "auto roll" feature which can re-purchase new T-Bills (or any Treasury/CD) at auction, automatically, when existing issues mature. It's completely hands-off: https://www.fidelity.com/fixed-income-bonds/fixed-income-tools-services/auto-roll-program https://www.fidelity.com/fixed-income-bonds/fixed-income-too...