Inflation sucks. Everything costs more. Money is worth less. Interest rates are through the roof. There is no end in sight ... But there are silver linings.
Along with sky-high interest rates on every imaginable loan comes sky-high APYs on online-only savings accounts. If you have excess cash, is it sitting around in a checking account or some dumb "savings account" that pays you 0.01%? Probably. Only 22% of savers are earning north of 3% on their savings. This irritates me, because I hate seeing Americans' money being turned into magical fairy dust by inflation caused by inept and crooked politicians and bureaucrats.
Money and markets are constantly shape-shifting, and you have to adjust your strategy from time to time to keep your house in order. Take advantage of the high APYs now, and whenever everything changes again and savings accounts are no longer paying well, move your money somewhere else. Because you're a grown up, gosh darn it. And it's not hard.
So say hypothetically you've got $10K just sitting in a low- or no-interest account, because that's the account you've always had since your mom co-signed it for you when you were 14. That $10K could be earning you more than $500 in interest in the next year. That's $42 per month. Which bill would that cancel out for you?
And the best part is that the interest compounds. If you put that $10,000 into a 5%-yielding savings account, it will be $10,042 after the first month. Then you've got $10,042 earning 5% - not just $10,000 - making the next month's earnings a little more, then the next month a little more, and so on. The snowball effect.
So here you go. Below are 13 online savings accounts paying between 4.25% and 5.07% right now, with links. (Note, these aren't affiliate links or anything, we're not in partnership with any of the banks below, we just love you. Also I am not a financial advisor and this is not financial advice. I am pretty sure I have to say that legally.)
💰 Upgrade - 5.07%
💰 Bask Bank - 5.00%
💰 Laurel Road - 5.00%
💰 EverBank - 5.00%
💰 BMO Alto - 4.85%
💰 CIT Bank - 4.65%
💰 SoFi - 4.50%
💰 Lending Club - 4.50%
💰 Synchrony Bank - 4.50%
💰 Barclays - 4.35%
💰 Discover - 4.30%
💰 Capital One - 4.30%
💰 Citi - 4.25%
Sure, you've never heard of some of the highest-paying banks, but they're all FDIC insured up to $250,000. Meaning, your funds are back-stopped by the federal government up to 250K. (Still a good idea to check out details like deposit/withdrawal limits and so on.) If you're more comfortable with a larger, name-brand institution, you could go with Discover, Capital One, or Citi.
I have used more than one of these online-only banks and it's been easy peasy. And btw, I did the same thing in '08-'09 when interest rates shot up.
There's no reason not to use all the tools at your disposal to fight inflation's effect on your family's resources, especially when it's this easy. Start doing the math on how much you're missing out on and take care of business!
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