Not sure why these big banks have not raised their saving account rates with the stronger economy. My current rate is 0.00785%

I am considering a Ally online savings account making 2.20%

2.20%

Annual Percentage Yield

On all balance tiers.

No monthly maintenance fees.

24/7 customer care.


Anybody have a account with Ally?

Yup. It's great.

Yup, nothing to complain about with it.

Dang you're getting ripped off for sure. My checking earns more interest than your savings

Shirt answer is the economy isn't that strong

I could easily be wrong because of lack of information.......but you may be comparing apples & oranges.

I suspect that your .00785% rate is a DAILY rate not an annualized yield

I've been with Ally since they were GMAC. Love em. They are always increasing rates as the Fed moves them up, it's very easy to transfer between accounts, and they have some nice CD options. 12 month CD currently at 2.75% Current savings is at 2.2%

They used to do a Refer a Friend, but don't anymore.

For the year I made .24 cents and had a balance over 2000.00 at beginning of year and over 3000.00 at the end of the year. US Bank

That really is pathetic. I would look at a money market account rather than a bank saving account.

I have a $2500 12 month CD 2.65% with Ally that I opened in October and it is showing interest accumulated already of $16.54. Their detail line shows I'm earning 18 cents a day on it.

Early penalty of course if I were to withdraw, but that ain't the plan.

The incentive for banks to pay more interest to get funds left when the politicians etc. raised the leverage limit or the amount of collateral the bank needed to loan out money. Seventy percent was an old guideline and that was moved out to 90% and thus many banks became investment banks and not places to money into. Also with the rapid rises in the market investors were in the stock market and not savings accounts. This still goes on but not like it did in the late 90s. So thast created a need for banks to find ways to put their money into the securities market so they could play on the bigger field.
We have done business with a small local bank who has been able to stay independent. They never broke away from the old lending guideline. We have been with them for 43 years. Our rates are similar to most other larger banks, a bit higher but we pay hardly any fees at all which is how many banks make up for the lower earnings from interest.

Bryce

Another thing too is that most people get paid through direct deposit so people were having to get bank accounts more or less through coercion instead of volunteering. This banks aren't having to compete with interest rates as much to get savers. Amongst other things...

It seems silver is cheap compared to gold and it peaks every 10-15 years so if a guy bought it right and sat on it then down the line (the way things are going) it should double in price then or even better. It was over $30 a few years back and it's $16 now so do the math.

Banks don't need savers to get money, they have the FED and the US government to artificially create it.

It was up to 50 a few years back. Physical silver should't be viewed as an investment.

They were crazy to get silver back then too. LOL Most class III weapons are more of a investment then people think as the values rise at a steady pace.

Just wondering why you say that?

Might be the lack of control is the only thing I could think of it's a long haul to get there depending on how things are going?

Back in July of 2011, silver topped out at $40.10/oz. Today it is trading @ $15.93 Not adjusted for inflation

The S&P 500, over that same time span returned a TRUE, compound annual growth rate of 13.75 %....in other words a dollar invested in the S&P in 2011 would be worth $2.46 today. Not adjusted for inflation.

Precious metals are not........as Steven says........ an investment.

land,if you can afford to keep it.

Solid advice and today there are so many retail platforms that make this easy by buy ETFs. I take have my saving funds and invest.

my problem is trusting someone else with my money nowadays.

For all that money made a lot of money had to be lost you would think, when there is a drop in the market and billions are lost and the market goes up the next day is all good then or not?

The lesson is to invest in good companies and ignore the short term headlines

Yes the market will be down at time but it also recovers. I'm at 12% annual average over the last 15 years.

Don't time the market, trust the market.

Boy my financial advisers suck. My wife and I are lucky to get a annual return of about 5%

Just wen't over this within the past week. I wish I new more about managing my money. Is there a class I could take to learn more about doing this myself.

White I do understand investing in good companies and not paying attention to the whims of the everyday market. Just don't know how to do those things.

Well rest assured you CAN learn it. You might start with some very basic stuff. Maybe a subscription to Money magazine or similar. Also, Investopedia.com and Morningstar.com are other unbiased sources of education.

Just dip your toe in the water and learn some basic definitions. You can open an account with an online broker and make all of your own decisions or buy into an actively managed mutual fund or funds and let a professional call the shots. Whatever you are comfortable with

Ok food for thought. You put 15,000 in savings at .02 % You earn 30 dollars in a year . Go down the street and by the kids bike for 40 bucks and resale it for 70 made the same amount of profit and don't have all your money tied up. I know a bunch of wheeler dealers that have made millions that way.....

One difference is that you can't sell that bike every day

My parents opened a savings account for me in 1964, in doing so the bank gave you a Silver Dollar. No big deal - right, well one day I was looking at the card the silver dollar is in and popped it out to look at the back of it. The bank is advertising its interest at 4.75%, boy you would think after fast forwarding all these years the interest would be higher, not lower.

Don't forget you lose roughly 2% to inflation yearly as well.

They are an insurance and depending on ones viewpoint metals might not be the best.

In 1964 money was still backed by metals in some form and our federal debt was at a modest and manageable level. Fast forward to today where our money is debt backed. What do you think will happen the liquidity of the US gubbiment and the American consumers if interest rates go much above where they are now. How about housing and land prices? The median home price in the USA is near 300,000, median household income is at about 61k. No way will new home buyers be able to afford a home if interest rates were at or near historical level.

The FED has just announced they are pretty much done raising rates. It's only at 2.25 to 2.5 percent now, the world is addicted to cheap money and in my not so educated opinion the only reason rates have gotten this high is they need something in their arsenal to combat the next recession.

Interest rates don't make things much more expensive unless the lower rates drive up the values so much that 3% of 250K is more than x % of 180 k. The lending institution can not deal with massive drops in equity values of leveraged assets. Many consumers can not either as they use assets or net worth to borrow money or use as collateral.

Bryce

One thing we have seen from the recent government shutdown, is that Americans, and even ones with 'good' jobs (i.e. government jobs), are still living paycheck to paycheck. They have no short term safety net.

While it's good to have long term investments (stock market, etc), everyone needs to have short term, easily LIQUIDATED investments, as well, in the event of layoff, sickness/disability, or just life in general. Dave Ramsey recommends 3-6 months of living expenses be at the ready.

I have a multilayered system of personal finance, which includes savings accounts and short term CDs. IMO, the OP was interested in this type of investment, either not having the funds for long term market investments, not having the knowledge/desire for same.

To that end, why not max out whatever interest you can on this "emergency" type of accounts? Everyone wants to jump in with their success stories of the market, but again, the shutdown has clearly shown us, if you slice the American financial system down the middle- the majority cannot withstand more than 2 or 3 weeks of monetary stress.

It needs to be addressed.

RKG well said. In addition here is another problem . Personal finance is NOT taught at home and is NOT taught at home. Very troubling for the future.

Sorry second NOT is school. More important to take 3 yrs of a foreign language that most will never use.

Not to hijack the thread, but it really irks me when we are so easily distracted by what the news, or politicians, or whoever, want us to see and believe.

Forget the wall for a minute, either side of the argument-

Look at the personal financial trouble our countrymen, and by extension, we are in.

Look at the financial trouble our nation is in. I gave a presentation 2 weeks ago and asked if anyone could imagine what a trillion dollars looked like. Sparing all the details and build up:

If you stacked 100 dollar bills on a standard pallet (42x42) and went 3 feet high, a trillion dollars would fill a football field, including the endzones. Our current debt is $22 trillion- 22 football fields worth of 100 dollar bills stacked on pallets. Our current year deficit is another football field of stacked 100 dollar bills.....

How is this ever going to be mitigated? Who is ever going to bring it up? Everything, from BOTH sides of the aisle, is smoke and mirrors.

I like to keep a years worth of living expenses in short term cds and savings. I need to check these guys out.

This savings account I am referring to is my personal savings.

My wife and I have 4 accounts with this bank. One joint checking, all monies go to this account, one joint savings, her personal savings and my personal savings. This was my idea when we married so we could spend money on things the other doesn't approve of. We contribute to all of our savings accounts each month.

I am going to give Ally a try. Eventually may put some of our joint savings into a account like this.

I am going to try to waste less time online here and spend some more time learning on some of the sites White recommended.

Thanks all for the advice. We also buy 1 roll of silver eagles every year, I enjoy giving these as gifts to nephews and nieces.

Investing in gold, silver, and lead is sometimes a wise investment.

The economy crash of October seriously hurt many folks. I need oil and natural gas prices to rise.

Our money market portfolio was diversified - we had stock in both Coke and Pepsi. Seriously.

Most our money is in the maket. I manage most of the stock account and our ROTHs myself. Those have done very well.
We have a traditional IRA managed by "professionals" that I haven't contributed to since 2002-It hasn't matched the market.

I have been lucky, but I'm getting nervous enough that I'm planning on meeting with a fee-only financial advisor. Anybody have any tips about where to find the best?

Big banks care about fees first, interest second.
Keep your savings to live off of in a bank you're comfortable with.
Put what you can in index funds or ETFs.
Let your money work for you while you sleep.

I have not been able to find current national debt data or our GDP or total economic activity in dollars, but what I would be interested in is, is this. Is our national economy while strong and growing, growing faster or slower than our national debt? We better be able to grow faster as a national economy with 3-4% UE instead of national debt or we will be at a point where the debt will consume the entire federal budget. That may take a generation but we seem to be on that path.
Some help please If we grow our national debt 1 trillion per year with 300 million citizens that means 3,333 dollars of additional debt per year. If we half that it is 1660. If the average tax payer is getting a 1200 tax savings that to me does not compute long term in helping citizens obtain financial security.
Bryce

http://www.usdebtclock.org/#

Bryce, here is a pretty good resource too look up the US debt and a bunch of other useful info.

According to this GDP has risen 128 percent since 2000, Since 2000, the national debt has risen by approximately 380 percent.

Our economy is run by debt and let's not forget about Quantitative Easing.

I agree with most, if you're looking for your money to make you money then why would you have one penny in savings? That should just be a cushion if ever needed but I just
put cash in my safe at home. ETF's are a great way to go. There are plenty of liquid investments you can get into.

Pot farms in Mn.

TimBer

In NY also.

pot farms in ny yes,timber in ny NO.

I wanted to get some 401k money out of the stock market,so I flipped some into a CD at 2.50%. Now that's not GREAT,,but Its in a safe account with no stock market gamble.

U
At 2.5% you are loosing money against inflation. When the market goes down it always trends back up leave your money in the market so you can ride the wave back up. Smart investors pour money into a down market let time in the market work for you. Buy low sell high that's how to make money

It is not the "American financial System". It is the Americans. Its not a matter of "can't" save for a rainy day, it's a matter of "won't" save for a rainy day. And people act like this is a new phenomenon. It's been going on forever. It is not instinctive to save. I don't know how you teach people this. It's seems pretty straightforward to me. But i'm not here to hold their hand or listen to them crybaby about it when it bites them on the butt.

x2

I don't have to ride anything.Its a guaranteed 2.5% with zero chance of loss due to a down market.To each his own.

You did all right Upstate. If I am recalling correctly aren't you retired or about to retire?

I agree with Hal, people won’t save. I maxed 401, saved and invested in vacant ground and retired 10 years early.

been retired for 3 months now.Had 40 years in the United Steelworkers Union.

We are retired, but I went back to work. Started a business to be able to afford retirement. So not really retired.

I primarily manage our retirement finances to make the money work for us. Today I went bank shopping for terms on cds. The best rate I found is 3% for 15 months. They would not negotiate for a better rate. A cd is good for peace of mind and fewer sleepless nights in a declining market. October was a micro depression. Some large funds lost 6% of value in one month. The cd rate is far better than mismanagement by a financial adviser.

I remember long ago getting 20% interest on a savings account when inflation was out of control. Vehicles were being repossessed and homes forclosed upon. Hopefully inflation will not rise with the increased fed rate.

I taught farmers for 37 years, mostly dairy farmers. I was asked to give many presentations about business management, financial management, etc. etc. I was asked many times what are some keys etc. Many were always looking for the easier softer way, the secret etc.
My simple closing remarks before I retired was this. "The white stuff that goes into the tank has to be worth more than the green stuff it took to put it in there". Some intuitively know how to do that and some will never figure it out.

Same can be said for any business and or working family or person for that matter. There are a lot of families that would benefit significantly from hiring reasonable cost financial planners or managers to help them become more successful in life.

Bryce

I would say the Fed's reversal in course with interest rates and it's balance sheet say's all we need to know. Negative rates in the next recession.

The stock market is propped up on cheap money. Saver's are getting punished. They are going to sacrifice the dollar for the stock market.

It's NOt the American financial system. It's the Western Central Banking System ! And what is happening here is happening all over the world. It's global. All these banks are connected.