{"id":8507,"date":"2010-02-16T05:00:39","date_gmt":"2010-02-16T12:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/blog\/?p=8507"},"modified":"2020-12-12T17:51:02","modified_gmt":"2020-12-13T01:51:02","slug":"how-to-get-the-best-rates-on-your-savings-safely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/how-to-get-the-best-rates-on-your-savings-safely\/","title":{"rendered":"How to get the best rates on your savings — safely"},"content":{"rendered":"
Over the past year, one of the frequent questions I get is: “Where I can safely<\/em> invest my money to get a decent return?” For example, Joseph wrote in November:<\/p>\n Around February\/March, I should have $5,000 to invest. My debts are under control and my wife and I have lowered our monthly expenses. I was wondering if you had any advice on ways to invest $5,000. I don’t want a savings account<\/a> because the interest rates are just sad, but I don’t know if a certificate of deposit<\/a> or money market account is worth the effort.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Or take this e-mail I got from MG just last week:<\/p>\n How about addressing how to invest $5,000, $10,000, or $15,000 these days? With high-yield savings rates<\/a> getting lower and lower and the stock market not doing so well either, what would you recommend?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Because the stock market has been so volatile over the past 15 years, a lot of people are scared to invest. Or they just want to find safe places to put part of their money in the short term. Unfortunately, it’s not like new ways to invest safely are being invented. If you want your money to be safe, you’ve basically got the same tried-and-true investments you are already familiar with.<\/p>\n Two recent articles in national magazines addressed this subject. Let’s look at their advice.<\/p>\n The March 2010 issue of “Consumer Reports<\/em>” has a great article on finding the best rates on your savings. They start at the same place we all<\/em> start: bank accounts. Here is what “Consumer Reports<\/em>” recommends:<\/p>\n To be honest, I am not sure that chasing stock dividends is the best way to get safe savings. Yes, I believe the market will increase over the long term; but folks who want safe harbors are usually looking to avoid risk — and, over the short term, stock funds are risky, even if they do have nice dividends.<\/p>\n The article suggests another option, one that I happen to like a lot. Because yields are so low right now, it can make sense to use your money to pay down your mortgage<\/a> instead. You shouldn’t do this if you don’t have emergency savings yet; but if you are near retirement or still paying private mortgage insurance, this can be an especially great use of your savings dollars.<\/p>\n The March 2010 issue of “Kiplinger’s Personal Finance<\/em>” has a small section on finding better rates. Their advice? “Start by looking online. Ally Bank is paying 1.45% on savings \u2014 way north of the 0.23% average rate on money-market funds.”<\/p>\n “Kiplinger’s”<\/em> recommends taking on a little more risk in order to get better rates. In particular, the magazine suggests:<\/p>\n For safe savings, bond funds may make more sense than stock funds, but I still think they are riskier than most people in this situation are after. I guess it depends on your goals.<\/p>\n As you prepare to save, you need to ask yourself a few questions:<\/p>\n Where do you put money that you want to keep safe? Do you even worry about returns? How can GRS readers find a good balance between safety and earnings?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n This website may receive payment by the companies mentioned in this blog.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over the past year, one of the frequent questions I get is: “Where I can safely<\/em> invest my money to get a decent return?” For example, Joseph wrote in November:<\/p>\n Around February\/March, I should have $5,000 to invest. My debts are under control and my wife and I have lowered our monthly expenses. I was wondering if you had any advice on ways to invest $5,000. I don’t want a savings account<\/a> because the interest rates are just sad, but I don’t know if a certificate of deposit<\/a> or money market account is worth the effort.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Or take this e-mail I got from MG just last week:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3287,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[492],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span>Advice from “Consumer Reports”<\/span><\/h2>\n
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<\/span>Advice from “Kiplinger’s”<\/span><\/h2>\n
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<\/span>The bottom line<\/span><\/h2>\n
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