savings rates and incentives

Littlejen22 · February 2014

I have not been on here in forever but hope you ladies can help. What bank has the best current rates and are any banks giving any incentives right now? We have money in ING and I am considering moving it. Thanks

Apollo11235 · February 2014

I don't know about incentives, but the best rates I've heard of in savings lately are .9% APY at Barclay's. We have money in CapOne360 as well, and it just doesn't seem worth the switch to earn an extra .1%.

cbee817 · February 2014

We're thinking about moving some money to a local credit union- it's getting .75% for a minimum deposit of $2500. I'm a bit of an old person when it comes to the $ we have at banks- I like a physical local location that I can go to if needed.

Sisugal · February 2014

Currently bank interest rates on savings are LOW, LOW, LOW. You may see some increase in interest rates as the fed lowers the amount of $$ they are monitizing (printing) each month by 10B over the next year or two.
Low interest rates are nice when you borrow, but a pain when saving.

hoffse · February 2014

You might find that some really small banks or credit unions have deals because they're trying to attract capital. Typically these require you use a debt card tied with the account a certain number of times per month, pay at least one bill out of the account, etc. And then they have caps. But I think my dad has a few accounts with 3-4% interest, and he simply gets his debit swipes by doing self-check-out at the grocery store when it's not busy (and going through it multiple times). It's a pain, but he's semi-retired and has the time/inclination to go through the hassle. There's really no risk associated with it, and at his and my mom's age that's appealing.

I think each account caps out at $10,000.

My parents have also started microlending and apparently have gotten a decent interest rate back on those. They do loans in small amounts so that if they get burned it's not much. So far they've been paid back, with interest, each time. I think this was inspired by the fact that they loaned me money for law school - and now that I'm paying them back they get an extra $800/month from me. It's fairly low interest rate, but it's still better than what some "safe" investments have right now. As they are moving to progressively safer (and thus lower return) investments, they're trying to get creative with ways to keep growing their money with less risk. I don't know much about the microlending thing, just that they've been satisfied with it.

Xstatic3333 · February 2014

cbee817 said:
We're thinking about moving some money to a local credit union- it's getting .75% for a minimum deposit of $2500. I'm a bit of an old person when it comes to the $ we have at banks- I like a physical local location that I can go to if needed.

This. Some of our savings is at a credit union and gets 4% on the first 3,000! The only requirement is to have our paychecks direct deposited into the linked checking account.

vlagrl29 · February 2014

Xstatic3333 said:

We're thinking about moving some money to a local credit union- it's getting .75% for a minimum deposit of $2500. I'm a bit of an old person when it comes to the $ we have at banks- I like a physical local location that I can go to if needed.
This. Some of our savings is at a credit union and gets 4% on the first 3,000! The only requirement is to have our paychecks direct deposited into the linked checking account.

a credit union close to us is doing this on the first 1500, but we don't want to move our checking there.

OurDCLove · February 2014

The best rates I have found for cash on CDs is at PenFed Credit Union. Up until a week ago, they were offering over 3% on a 5 year CD.

The draw back is that, since it is a CD, you'd have to give back some of the earned interest if you needed to use the cash.

Apollo11235 · February 2014

hoffse said:

You might find that some really small banks or credit unions have deals because they're trying to attract capital. Typically these require you use a debt card tied with the account a certain number of times per month, pay at least one bill out of the account, etc. And then they have caps. But I think my dad has a few accounts with 3-4% interest, and he simply gets his debit swipes by doing self-check-out at the grocery store when it's not busy (and going through it multiple times). It's a pain, but he's semi-retired and has the time/inclination to go through the hassle. There's really no risk associated with it, and at his and my mom's age that's appealing.

I think each account caps out at $10,000.

My parents have also started microlending and apparently have gotten a decent interest rate back on those. They do loans in small amounts so that if they get burned it's not much. So far they've been paid back, with interest, each time. I think this was inspired by the fact that they loaned me money for law school - and now that I'm paying them back they get an extra $800/month from me. It's fairly low interest rate, but it's still better than what some "safe" investments have right now. As they are moving to progressively safer (and thus lower return) investments, they're trying to get creative with ways to keep growing their money with less risk. I don't know much about the microlending thing, just that they've been satisfied with it.

Microlending is definitely investing, not saving. You can make it a fairly safe investment and it generally does very well. Theoretically, though, no matter how you do it you have the potential to lose every penny, so it's a completely different financial "product." All I know about it is essentially that, and the fact that there are relatively few states where residents can actually invest in it. We looked into it a while back and found that it's illegal in our state (interestingly, only to lend - borrowing is legal here).

hoffse · February 2014

^^Yes, I know it's investing and not saving - but at the end of the day, OP is asking for options. The reality is that there just aren't very good guaranteed rates right now, particularly if you're trying to get a good return on a large amount of money, and even "safe" investments (like bonds) aren't returning much. I wasn't trying to imply that it's guaranteed. But it's another option that a lot of people don't even consider.

savings rates and incentives

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