Is the money in your savings account something that you need immediate access to at any time? It's about the lowest interest rate that anyone's money can earn. I put mine in investments with AIG and others, and I can get money from them transferred to saving or checking with just a few days notice. I also bought stock with the company I just retired from over the years, and leave that just where it is to grow.

3katz, is the rate you found a promotional rate?

Check out Synchrony Bank...their rates are pretty good.

Something to consider: "Threaten" them. We were recently ready to move a bunch of money from one bank to another. When we told bank one about it they upped our interest rate considerably.

No it’s not a promotional rate. The money I keep in bank accounts is the portion of my financial assets that I want liquid. My friend shops bankrate.com. Synchrony is one of the banks she mentioned and I saw that one on there. I’m reluctant to pick one I’ve never heard of so picked one I had heard of. Also moved some to FDIC insured money markets.

As interest rates are rising my banks are not increasing the rates on deposit accounts so I’m going elsewhere - free market competition. It just irks me that I put up with this as long as I did. I supposedly had some kind of VIP account at my bank. I’ll be interested to see if they notice when VIPs drain their accounts. I’m not interested in continuing to let these people use my money even if threatening gets a higher rate. I’m getting myself all riled up again....

Anyone remember the good ol' days when CDs earned 11%! HA! I think our bank offers .0000000001% LMAO.

arkansas girl - I got a CD when they were a new thing (people were very suspicious of them at the time for some reason). 14.5 % interest. I kind of wish the feds would stop meddling with interest rates. I managed to buy a house (while not earning a whole lot of money) with a 13% interest rate mortgage and a few years later refinanced at 9%. It was the norm then. The current low interest rates do not encourage saving.

Oh ya I remember those times and we also were in hog heaven to assume an 8% mortgage so we only had to pay 18% on the rest of the money we had to come up with to buy our first house.

Amex Bank savings linked to checking. We get I think 1.9% now. Better than it was that's for sure. We move funds back and forth as the need arises.

We have a free checking account. I think some checking accounts require a minimum balance to be free. In which case the fees are probably more than any interest they give you at a bank so watch out for that.

We have the bulk of our cash savings in the local Methodist Foundation. They are paying 2.5% and it’s as accessible as the money in our local credit union.

Donna

For those who bank online, do you also have funds in a local bank or credit union in case you need to do some transactions in person?

Yes we do. We have a premier type checking account at a local branch of a large national bank that comes with the usual services like free cashiers checks, sig guarantees, etc. Its handy if you need those services periodically.

The American Express Bank savings is fdic insured. Transfers are quick and easy.

We usually keep 3 to 6 months expenses in savings, maybe more at times.

Need to look into this. Thanks. We have local bank and credit unions.

Yes - I kept enough in my regular bank to get the "free" services including "free" checks as I do still write a few checks. And also enough for anything major I might "need" immediately because it is an immediate transfer from savings to checking at my regular bank. Online bank to my local checking account is not.

Interest rates have been at or near zero for quite awhile. I also miss those high interest days of the 80s, but I think they were sort of a last hurrah. I understand the S&L Crisis back then was brought on in part by those high rates.

I have several accounts at my credit union and keep moving funds back and forth as the rates change, but they're all still around 1%.

I had an offer from American Express for a 3% rate, which looks to be higher than the savings rates listed at the bankrate.com site.

OTOH, I have several credit cards w/ 0% interest, and I keep getting more offers in the mail every week, probably because I have a very good credit rating. I have a stack of envelopes piling up, because I procrastinate shredding them.

I heard some reporting recently about how many women tend not to invest their money, but rather tend to just have savings, and there was a site created to help with that - and now I cannot recall the name of it.