I ran across a pretty good savings account deal this morning over at TechBargains.com. WT Direct, which is FDIC insured, is offering a cash bonus to new savings account clients. Go to WT Direct to figure out your cash bonus. Right now, their rate is 1.76% APY and they are consistently in the top 5% of U.S. Banks.
You have to deposit your money by August 15th and keep your funds on deposit with WTDirect through 10/31 to get your bonus, which unfortunately has to be a pretty hefty $50,000 to get $125. A more reasonable $10,000 is only going to get you $25. However, 1.76% isn’t a bad rate these days.
I took a look at my ING savings account yesterday and man, I need to pay better attention to my rates. I know that everyone is suffering from low interest rates on their savings and money market accounts, but there has got to better savings rates than what I am getting right now.
Lock it Up
That’s why I’m thinking of locking up my money in a bank CD for the long term. I don’t see the current interest rate crunch lightening up anytime soon and I already have a lot of my money in the stock market. So today I’ve been searching for the highest CD rates on bank CD’s at Bankrate.com.
I think I’ve got it narrowed down to two. The Discover three year CD at 2.75%. And the First Midwest 32 month CD at 2.76% with a guaranteed interest rate boost every 8 months.
Both of these are pretty good rates given the climate. I’m just not sure if I want to lock up my money for 3 years. My next step is going to be researching money market rates.
According to Mint.com we are starting to spend more. After 18 months of straight drops in spending, Mint noticed that it’s million plus users have increased spending by a whole 3% over the 1st quarter of this year. But it is still less than 2% ,on average, versus Q2 2008.
The most dramatic increases versus Q1 were in shopping and Travel, both up 17% and entertainment up 6%. Spending on Gas and Fuel is down nearly 40% versus Q2 2008, thanks to a decline in lower gasoline prices.
So is this a sign that the economy is recovering and all is well again? I doubt it. The stock market has also gone up over this time period and I doubt that the worse is over for the stock market as well.
I’ve been shopping for some high interest savings accounts and I came across American Express. They are currently offering a 2.0% high yield savings account. Not bad in these low interest times. I’ve noticed rates have climbed a little in the past week, so I wouldn’t be surprised that we’ll see some higher interest rate savings account soon.
One of your biggest expenses can be the grocery bill. Especially if you only buy name brand items at full price. This can lead to costs of hundreds of dollars per trip to the grocery store.
The following are examples on how you can save money on your grocery store purchases.
