Where to earn decent interest

[amc80]

I'm selling my condo and will have some cash that I need to do *something* with for about two years. My initial search has found interest rates less than 1%. Is there anything better out there? It will be in the $50k range.

 

[baby monster]

According to bankrate.com, the best cd rate right now is at ge capital bank. 2yr cd 1.15% apy.

 

[amc80]

According to bankrate.com, the best cd rate right now is at ge capital bank. 2yr cd 1.15% apy.

Ugh, that just seems so ridiculous for a two year rate. It would earn me $460 over TWO years. Ick. I mean, I know interest rates are low and all, but c'mon.

 

[baby monster]

Yup. That's all you get nowadays. The flipside is that my friends recently got 3.25% mortgage.

 

[marymm]

Huh,per American Express' High-Yield Savings Account calculator, it says you'd get $803 return on $50K with a 2-year investment period...
https://personalsavings.americanexp...ct.html?extlink=ps-us-PersonalSavings-PS000SA

 

[iLander]

The banks and the federal government are essentially punishing savers to keep interest rates artificially low.

Banks are making most of their money this way: the interbank loan rate is around 2%. They buy treasuries at 3%. They make 1% risk free. On billions of dollars. There's zero risk and the banks have no reason to make loans, pay CD's or anything else. So they don't.

It makes me hopping mad, I wrote my congressman. But it won't matter, because I don't have a $100,000 corporate lobbyist in Washington to get anyone's attention.

 

[Dancing Fire]

How about dividend paying stocks?

 

[aviastar]

My DH and I just met with our new financial advisor last week; she's with Wells Fargo and we set up a Command Account in addition to having her manage our IRA. As I understand it- and it's brand new to us, so I have no real world experience with it yet- the command account is a checking account but we can own assets with it, too. So we are putting money in, that we have full access to, no penalties to use it, and we are going to choose some mutual funds to purchase with it so it will be earning money as we go. The fund we are looking at have about an average 8% return over the long run, but as high as 11%. We're using the account to save for a down payment on our home; it would take us a very long time to just sock away the money we need, hopefully we can make it work for us even a little bit in the mean time.

We pay $100/year and then a small percentage (less than 1%, I think) of our interest earnings and it covers any account we have with Wells Fargo and all our advisor's services.

 

[Dancing Fire]

My DH and I just met with our new financial advisor last week; she's with Wells Fargo and we set up a Command Account in addition to having her manage our IRA. As I understand it- and it's brand new to us, so I have no real world experience with it yet- the command account is a checking account but we can own assets with it, too. So we are putting money in, that we have full access to, no penalties to use it, and we are going to choose some mutual funds to purchase with it so it will be earning money as we go. The fund we are looking at have about an average 8% return over the long run, but as high as 11%. We're using the account to save for a down payment on our home; it would take us a very long time to just sock away the money we need, hopefully we can make it work for us even a little bit in the mean time.

We pay $100/year and then a small percentage (less than 1%, I think) of our interest earnings and it covers any account we have with Wells Fargo and all our advisor's services.

that's no difference then buying stock or mutual funds.There are no guarantee that you won't lose money.

 

[amc80]

My DH and I just met with our new financial advisor last week; she's with Wells Fargo and we set up a Command Account in addition to having her manage our IRA. As I understand it- and it's brand new to us, so I have no real world experience with it yet- the command account is a checking account but we can own assets with it, too. So we are putting money in, that we have full access to, no penalties to use it, and we are going to choose some mutual funds to purchase with it so it will be earning money as we go. The fund we are looking at have about an average 8% return over the long run, but as high as 11%. We're using the account to save for a down payment on our home; it would take us a very long time to just sock away the money we need, hopefully we can make it work for us even a little bit in the mean time.

We pay $100/year and then a small percentage (less than 1%, I think) of our interest earnings and it covers any account we have with Wells Fargo and all our advisor's services.

The problem is I don't want risk. Like you, this money is going to be a down payment when we go to buy in another year or two.

I think I'm just going to stick it in a normal savings account. No point in losing liquidity for a few basis points.

 

[movie zombie]

[quote="amc80|1395168960|3636617........ No point in losing liquidity for a few basis points.[/quote]


exactly!

 

[aviastar]

My DH and I just met with our new financial advisor last week; she's with Wells Fargo and we set up a Command Account in addition to having her manage our IRA. As I understand it- and it's brand new to us, so I have no real world experience with it yet- the command account is a checking account but we can own assets with it, too. So we are putting money in, that we have full access to, no penalties to use it, and we are going to choose some mutual funds to purchase with it so it will be earning money as we go. The fund we are looking at have about an average 8% return over the long run, but as high as 11%. We're using the account to save for a down payment on our home; it would take us a very long time to just sock away the money we need, hopefully we can make it work for us even a little bit in the mean time.

We pay $100/year and then a small percentage (less than 1%, I think) of our interest earnings and it covers any account we have with Wells Fargo and all our advisor's services.

The problem is I don't want risk. Like you, this money is going to be a down payment when we go to buy in another year or two.

I think I'm just going to stick it in a normal savings account. No point in losing liquidity for a few basis points.

That is the crux of the issue; there really isn't very much reward if you aren't willing to put it at risk.

 

[Dancing Fire]

My DH and I just met with our new financial advisor last week; she's with Wells Fargo and we set up a Command Account in addition to having her manage our IRA. As I understand it- and it's brand new to us, so I have no real world experience with it yet- the command account is a checking account but we can own assets with it, too. So we are putting money in, that we have full access to, no penalties to use it, and we are going to choose some mutual funds to purchase with it so it will be earning money as we go. The fund we are looking at have about an average 8% return over the long run, but as high as 11%. We're using the account to save for a down payment on our home; it would take us a very long time to just sock away the money we need, hopefully we can make it work for us even a little bit in the mean time.

We pay $100/year and then a small percentage (less than 1%, I think) of our interest earnings and it covers any account we have with Wells Fargo and all our advisor's services.

The problem is I don't want risk. Like you, this money is going to be a down payment when we go to buy in another year or two.

I think I'm just going to stick it in a normal savings account. No point in losing liquidity for a few basis points.

Yup, in your case don't take any risk with your $$$ just leave the money in a money market account.

 

[Dancing Fire]

My DH and I just met with our new financial advisor last week; she's with Wells Fargo and we set up a Command Account in addition to having her manage our IRA. As I understand it- and it's brand new to us, so I have no real world experience with it yet- the command account is a checking account but we can own assets with it, too. So we are putting money in, that we have full access to, no penalties to use it, and we are going to choose some mutual funds to purchase with it so it will be earning money as we go. The fund we are looking at have about an average 8% return over the long run, but as high as 11%. We're using the account to save for a down payment on our home; it would take us a very long time to just sock away the money we need, hopefully we can make it work for us even a little bit in the mean time.

We pay $100/year and then a small percentage (less than 1%, I think) of our interest earnings and it covers any account we have with Wells Fargo and all our advisor's services.

The problem is I don't want risk. Like you, this money is going to be a down payment when we go to buy in another year or two.

I think I'm just going to stick it in a normal savings account. No point in losing liquidity for a few basis points.

That is the crux of the issue; there really isn't very much reward if you aren't willing to put it at risk.

Then you better hope the stock market does not take a dive while your saving for d/p on a house.

 

[aviastar]

My DH and I just met with our new financial advisor last week; she's with Wells Fargo and we set up a Command Account in addition to having her manage our IRA. As I understand it- and it's brand new to us, so I have no real world experience with it yet- the command account is a checking account but we can own assets with it, too. So we are putting money in, that we have full access to, no penalties to use it, and we are going to choose some mutual funds to purchase with it so it will be earning money as we go. The fund we are looking at have about an average 8% return over the long run, but as high as 11%. We're using the account to save for a down payment on our home; it would take us a very long time to just sock away the money we need, hopefully we can make it work for us even a little bit in the mean time.

We pay $100/year and then a small percentage (less than 1%, I think) of our interest earnings and it covers any account we have with Wells Fargo and all our advisor's services.

The problem is I don't want risk. Like you, this money is going to be a down payment when we go to buy in another year or two.

I think I'm just going to stick it in a normal savings account. No point in losing liquidity for a few basis points.

That is the crux of the issue; there really isn't very much reward if you aren't willing to put it at risk.

Then you better hope the stock market does not take a dive while your saving for d/p on a house.

We're not too worried about it. We have years to leave it alone should we need to. But we're being fairly conservative in our choices and the funds we are choosing have excellent ten year returns. The market averages 8% over its whole life span, including Great Depression and all the bad years; we can ride it out if there is a bad year or two. Things this past year were apparently quite good, some of the funds we looked at were averaging 23%, so we were warned not to expect that this year and we certainly don't. Any increase is more than it's making sitting in a savings account.

 

[iLander]

Aviastar,

I think everyone is complaining because, before the real estate debacle, we were getting 5% per year on our CD's. 100% safe, guaranteed return.

Now we got nada, zilch.

I think DF is especially crabby about it.

BTW, also at that time, I recall a Bank of America Financial guy offering us 10% return on GMAC mortgage-backed bonds. DH and I were suspicious of the high rate, so we passed. Glad we did.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Yes, a money market fund is where to park emergency money or money that may be needed for a down payment on a house in the next couple of years. The comfort is in knowing it will be there when you need it. We have other money that can sit for years and ride out the fluctuations in the stock market.

(I would NOT put all my money in stock mutual funds at one time at this point in time. I think that is very risky. I'd put in a little each month over the next couple of years so that you dollar cost average. You could do this without paying those advisor fees by going with Fidelity or Vanguard which have plenty of no-load mutual funds with low fees. I hope they have you in all no-load funds, aviastar.)