So with the downturn of summer from classes for some, and the expense of summer vacations for others, I'd thought I would start a conversation about what online savings accounts would be ideal for people.

Currently HBSC has a 3.50% APY special going on for any account opened until August 15th. This is down dramatically from the 6% thet offered in January.
http://www.hsbcdirect.com/1/2/1/default/learn-more/osa?code=WES0002073

ING Direct is offering a 3% APY on all their online savings accounts for the foreseeable future. http://home.ingdirect.com/products/products.asp?s=OrangeSavingsAccount

So what do you use? Still banking with BoA CDs? Or do you use an online only account?

With the economy on the fall is it a good time to invest now, or do you suggest people wait until it kicks back up again (when it does, the if is how strong)?

Politics aside please. Lets see if we can collectively give everyone a heads up about fiscal savings issues here. Online savings accounts to start.

[Edited on June 24, 2008 at 11:07 AM. Reason : grammar]

6/24/2008 11:06:53 AM

i've been using hsbc for a while now and haven't had any issues

6/24/2008 11:10:46 AM

The only problem with "high" rate savings accounts is the moment people with some actual balls start losing money (the stock market/real estate decline comes to mind) the rate goes to crap. To be expected though.

I personally have some money in ING at the moment. Probably entirely too much to be honest.

6/24/2008 11:12:33 AM

i have an ing account and have for years. if you want a referral, i can send you one. you get $25, i get $10.

6/24/2008 11:16:44 AM

SECU has a 3.2% rate on their money market account right now. obviously down a lot since the market took a dive.

6/24/2008 11:17:09 AM

Everything's down, ING was at something like 4.5% about a year ago, now they're all the way down to 3.

6/24/2008 11:23:55 AM

yeah last year i had 4.5, i just checked it and it's 3.0

6/24/2008 11:26:46 AM

I'll probably start a Roth IRA with the new job through SECU, its at 3.5%

6/24/2008 12:24:09 PM

I could get you a 3.5% APR rate on a checking account at my bank. Plus they give you (and me) 50 bucks to sign up. No minimum balance or fees. You get a debit card to use the money and you can use any ATM because the reimburse you up to 8 times a month for ATM fees. Its not an online bank either....its a credit union.

6/24/2008 12:34:21 PM

I use HSBC.

6/24/2008 12:41:01 PM

<-- HSBC

6/24/2008 3:53:24 PM

ING direct here also

Think twice about opening your Roth with SECU. Because of their organization, they are not allowed to offer the investment opportunities that you may be looking for by going with a Roth.

*I am not the person to explain the pros/cons of setting up Roth through the credit union. There are plenty of others on here that know way more than I do.*

6/24/2008 4:07:02 PM

http://capitalbank-nc.com/ 5.01%

6/24/2008 4:18:03 PM

don't open up a roth IRA with whatever they have at SECU that is 3.5% (a CD i guess). make your roth be in an aggressive mutual fund or two.

6/24/2008 5:04:16 PM

i have ing direct, secu money market, and hsbc and rate chase. just sign up for all of them and chase the highest rate with the free online transfers.

i'm going to have to check capital bank though...my boss uses them and is a high net worth individual, so i know they must be steady.

Quote :

"Earning these rewards is simple... just use the services we’re giving you with the account: 1. Use your debit card at least ten times per cycle. (Sorry, ATM withdrawals do not count as debit card transactions.) 2. Establish at least one regular direct deposit of a payroll or government check, or set up an automatic debit. 3. Receive Electronic Statements, known as e-Statements."

[Edited on June 24, 2008 at 5:13 PM. Reason : .]

6/24/2008 5:12:53 PM

I have ING Direct and have been happy with it so far...let me know if you want a referal for an extra $25 in your account

6/24/2008 6:30:06 PM

I use HSBC.

6/24/2008 6:41:15 PM

i have emigrantdirect which was awesome at 5.75 until it plummeted to 2.75 recently. i loved logging in every month to see the front page display a lower amount each time.

6/24/2008 6:44:34 PM

I would have thought you'd have hated that.

6/24/2008 11:15:31 PM

i get 4.5% in my money market account with ag edwards

i use money market accounts as savings accounts, i think most people do

i also do the way2save thing with wachovia and after they give me $300 for what i've saved after a year i'll toss it into the money market

i send checks to ag edwards through my wachovia account online. i treat my money market as a bill and pay it twice a month automatically. awesome, i never think about it.

6/24/2008 11:22:03 PM

Quote :

"treat my money market as a bill and pay it twice a month automatically. awesome, i never think about it."

That's the key for roth ira's and savings

6/24/2008 11:26:32 PM

http://www.emigrantdirect.com

6/24/2008 11:56:05 PM

^^ roth is maxed for the year, i like to pay it for the year in january

paying off student loans this year and the goal for next year is to max the 401k

6/25/2008 12:15:44 AM

Quote :

"don't open up a roth IRA with whatever they have at SECU that is 3.5% (a CD i guess). make your roth be in an aggressive mutual fund or two."

6/25/2008 12:01:04 PM

Quote :

"i also do the way2save thing with wachovia and after they give me $300 "

Quote :

"Sign up for Way2Save. (and any Wachovia Free Checking account) and start saving. We’ll transfer $1 from your checking account into your Way2Save account"

Wait, so they give you $300 of your own money?

6/25/2008 12:02:45 PM

hsbc savings and hsbc int. bearing checking (i think they call it a bill payment account) that i direct-deposit a %age of my paycheck for my mortgage

6/25/2008 12:45:08 PM

Quote :

"obviously down a lot since the market took a dive."

are you an idiot. The MM account and any other fucking savings account you can get is down b.c of teh continuous fed rate cuts. If anything your lower savings account rate is putting upward pressure on stocks at the lower rate of return makes possible gains in stock more attractive.

6/25/2008 12:58:36 PM

Quote :

"Wait, so they give you $300 of your own money?"

har har. no

they match what you save up to $300

read all the materials

6/25/2008 1:33:48 PM

Quote :

"1 Customers enrolled in the program earn a 5 percent annual bonus in year one, up to $300"

6/25/2008 1:40:07 PM

Quote :

"are you an idiot. The MM account and any other fucking savings account you can get is down b.c of teh continuous fed rate cuts. If anything your lower savings account rate is putting upward pressure on stocks at the lower rate of return makes possible gains in stock more attractive"

please contribute to the discussion or go back to trolling TSB. thx.

Good information so far everyone. Its good to hear what people are doing or have been. It helps broaden ideas of how to progress fiscally to those (myself somewhat) who want to save but do not know what are your options.

NCSUWolfy, I like that AG Edwards MM. The problem is though they don't allow withdrawals without penalty correct? Most MMs are like that from what I recall, or am I thinking CDs?

6/26/2008 1:09:15 PM

CDs

6/26/2008 1:15:23 PM

i have a money market account with capital one, it gets ~3% last time i checked. i use it as my savings account. where i work we're allowed to have our paycheck deposited to three separate accounts if we want, so i just have a certain percentage of my check put there, that way i don't have to do anything, and i never actually see the money.

i've always been really really horrible at saving money, this works really well for me.

i like capital one's mm because there are no fees for anything i do normally (deposit, withdrawal, transfers, etc.) and i have a debit card linked to it if i have an emergency or something..

[Edited on June 26, 2008 at 1:22 PM. Reason : lakd]

6/26/2008 1:20:24 PM

HSBC

6/26/2008 1:24:43 PM

Quote :

"roth is maxed for the year, i like to pay it for the year in january"

Good that you maxed it, but what if the market declined after that. Ideally, you would max it out when the market was lowest. That's difficult to predict, so I just invest every week and it is maxed by December 31.

6/26/2008 11:07:27 PM

Quote :

"Dollar Cost Averaging is an investment system that is widely advocated by brokerage firms and mutual funds. In its best known form, an investor seeking to put a lump sum into risky assets is counseled to invest the money over a period of time in equal installments in order to avoid the devastating effect of a market fall immediately after a single, lump-sum investment. Using graphical analysis, historical stock market returns, and Monte Carlo simulations, this article demonstrates that no such benefit accrues to a Dollar Cost Averaging Strategy."

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6W4D-45JK782-6/2/bec35bbe850cf520ddbb20d9eb634271

6/26/2008 11:10:50 PM

NCSUWolfy what is the money market fund you have at AG Edwards? I looked at their website and the money market funds i found had much lower rates: http://www.agedwards.com/public/content/sc/financial_services/investment_products/money_market_funds/money_market_rates.html

6/27/2008 4:46:22 PM

Quote :

"The only problem with "high" rate savings accounts is the moment people with some actual balls start losing money (the stock market/real estate decline comes to mind) the rate goes to crap. To be expected though. "

I wouldn't really even call that a "problem". Cash is not an investment, and it's futile to look at it that way.

You need to be buying stocks (or really, probably stock-based index funds for most of us). You also need a certain amount of cash on hand. If you're still in school, maybe invest a little in stocks if you can. Otherwise, stay out of debt and keep what cash you do have in as good of a place as you can...like a money market account.

6/27/2008 4:57:32 PM

^^ rates are down right now but they'll bounce back

plus its a money market so its not like im losing anything, im just not making as much on interest. at the time they had the most competitive rate i could find

6/27/2008 6:11:02 PM

^^

I dont have any debt. The majority of my money is in a pansy savings account. I do use my 401k with a brokerage link though.


Hell, I'm just glad i don't owe anyone money. I think I'm in the honeymoon stage of getting paychecks.


IT PRINTS MONEY

6/27/2008 7:53:05 PM

for you HSBC guys, if you ever need to withdraw money, how long does it usually take for the transfer to complete?

8/26/2008 12:32:36 PM

~3-4 business days

8/26/2008 12:53:46 PM

i keep most of my money with capital bank now with the 5.01% interest. i have ing, hsbc, secu money market and checking/savings, but capital has by far the best rate of any online savings account imo.

8/26/2008 4:30:41 PM

didn't read the whole thread, but i have ING Direct...signed up when i got the $25 referral bonus

8/26/2008 4:41:04 PM

Quote :

"The only problem with "high" rate savings accounts is the moment people with some actual balls start losing money (the stock market/real estate decline comes to mind) the rate goes to crap. To be expected though. "

That's not really a problem when you compare it to the <0.5% interest rate your regular bank gives on its savings accounts. So ING dropped from 5% to 3%. Big whoop. It's a hell of a lot better than the 0.2% that First Citizens was giving me before I dropped that savings account.

You shouldn't view these as "investments." They're just savings accounts. It's where the cash goes when I don't need it in my checking account at the moment but might need it at the end of the month. If it makes a couple of bucks while it's sitting there, then that's just an added bonus.

8/26/2008 5:39:26 PM

it's not really even a place to make a few bucks. A savings account should be a place to put money where it will hopefully keep up with inflation

8/26/2008 8:44:10 PM

Two thumbs way up to that Capital Bank 5.01% account - the BF and I are now in much better bank accounts... that are now workin' for us

9/3/2008 11:35:30 PM

I'm with ING for the time being.

No complaints.

9/3/2008 11:37:15 PM

http://www.bankaholic.com/money-market/


Top 50 high interest savings account (ranked by APR)

9/4/2008 12:22:07 AM

savings is retarded right now. the dollar is going to go to complete shit in the next 2 years. Inflation might even be higher than that interest rate. You're actually losing money.

9/4/2008 12:24:37 AM

^so your solution is? hide the cash in a mattress? we are NOT at 5% inflation yet

9/4/2008 12:26:44 AM