My savings account I've had since I learned how to walk pays .05% in interest. The account has about 10,000 in it and constitutes my emergency fund. I'm 19 on scholarships to college and won't need this money for now and would like to get a better interest rate. I also have a 20,000 cd with them for two more years at 4.28%.

So, how would you get a better rate?

Switch banks? -it is very convenient with locations in my hometown as well as away at school.

Go into the bank and see what they'd do?- Not sure if I'd have much luck, but hoping my cd would help give me leverage.

What would you do?

Unfortunately, right now is a terrible time for interest rates.

I can't say anything for certain about your bank, but if it's similar to chase you might check if you're eligible for the next tier of savings account. They might make you open up a checking account and "link" the balance of your CDs in order to qualify for no monthly service fee. At chase this would yield you a whopping 0.15% interest rate!

Question: Do you really need a brick and mortar branch? If not check out http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/03/21/which-online-high-yield-savings-account-is-best/ to get your whopping 0.65-0.9% return

You are already getting an unbelievably good interest rate.

I know my cd rate is pretty good, but .05% on savings? ugh maybe I should give up on trying to make an extra forty-five bucks in interest this year. (10,000*.005)-(10,000*.0005)=45 Yet again 45 is better than the five I'll get with .05%, who know's I'll stop by the bank tomorrow

The best savings account interest rates are the online savings accounts. If you really want to earn more savings, I'd recommend an ING Direct (0.8% APY) account. ALLY Bank and American Express also offer higher interest rates as well. If you are willing to have an online only account, you'll do much better than 0.05%. It's not like 0.8% APY is all that stellar either though. Interest rates really do suck now. Consider yourself lucky that you at least are making something on your CDs.

Why not take out a 5 yr CD at somewhere like Ally? The penalty is small and the interest rate is higher.

Also, if you can be without the money for at least 1 year, I-bonds are a good option as well. 2.2% for the next 6 months I believe. Buy at the end of the month, btw.

As an aside it's interesting (no pun intended) to note the differences in interest rates between ING in the US and ING Canada. Here in Canada ING pays 1.35% for a standard savings account, but the best rate it offers for a 5-year CD is 2.25%.

In general, when complaining about today's low interest rates it's important to also consider today's low inflation rate: interest rates don't mean much when considered in isolation. Back in the early 1980s you could get a regular savings account that paid 5.7%, but inflation was in the double digits. You're actually coming out better at today's low rates.

We won't talk about the current rate ING Australia has on offer: 5.35% for new accounts, drops to 3.75% after 4 months, but if you deposit $200 a month, they give an extra 0.75%.

Greece has some pretty good rates as well....

The information shared here is very useful and informative.

But that's hardly a fair comparison. Greece is in trouble while Australia has done phenomenally well over the last few years, partly because gold has done well and their currency benefits from gold.

I am about as far from a gold bug as you can get. But I'd take 5% in an Australian account over 0.5% in a US account or 25% in a Greek account any day. Now, make teh Greek deposit ECB insured and I'll have to think harder.

Yes, but the inflation rate in Australia right now is 1.2%. So knock that off and you get an actual rate of 4.15% (still great) for the introductory rate and 2.5% thereafter....also still great compared with what we can get in North America. But inflation in the United States right now is at 0.1%.

How about looking at your 20k cd as your emergency fund. The penalty for early withdrawal is small. Usually a small percent of the interest earned.
And investing in a diversified way the 10k. Such as stock ETF's since you're so young.

risks for an american investing in either country are the same. probability of those risks...well, that is a different story.