With an emergency fund, you want to make sure you have access to money and there aren’t a lot of hurdles you have to go through and don’t incur any penalties. So where should you put your emergency savings?
(This information is not meant to be financial advice and is just for educational purposes. This post may include affiliate links. Should you click an affiliate link and make a purchase I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.)
Personally, I think a high-yield savings account is a great option for parking your emergency fund. The reasons are
- Few to no fees: Many savings accounts will require you to maintain a specific balance to avoid account and maintenance fees. The high-yield savings accounts I’ve found don’t have that requirement
- FDIC insured: Your money is protected
- Better earnings: They tend to have some of the better yields among savings accounts so you earn more interest over time
Now I know interest rates are low, even with high-yield savings accounts. So you’re not going to earn a huge amount of interest but that doesn’t mean you should leave any money, or pennies, on the table either.
Related read: Make Monitoring Your Finances Easier With These 5 Apps
One thing to note about high-yield savings accounts is they are typically online-only so to access your money you would have to transfer it to another account with ATM or check access.
Here are some good high-yield accounts to check out
Discover Bank Online Savings Account
- They claim with this account that you can “earn interest over 5x the National Savings Average”
- Required opening deposit: There is no minimum opening deposit
- Interest earnings: Interest is compounded daily. Check out the site to see what the current annual percentage yield is and calculate how much interest you could earn based on your deposit amount
- Fees: There is no monthly fee. Additionally, they don’t charge fees for insufficient funds
- Requirements: None
Related read: 15+ Ways You Can Save Money This Year
Ally Bank
- They claim this savings account that lets your money work smarter and that people have saved, on average, 2x more when they’ve used Ally's smart savings tools
- Required opening deposit: There is a $0 minimum deposit
- Interest earnings: Visit the site to see what the current annual percentage yield is
- Fees: This high-yield savings account has no maintenance fees
- Requirements: There are no monthly minimum balance requirements
- Additional benefits:
- You can use buckets to organize or divvy up your money and visualize what you’re saving for
- Get personalized recommendations to help you save more
- Set up boosters to optimize and maximize your savings, even if the rate changes after you open the account
Barclays US Online Savings
- Like Discover Bank they also claim to provide “a rate greater than 5x the national average”
- Required opening deposit: There are no minimum balances required to open the account
- Interest earnings: Check the site to see the current annual percentage yield
- Fees: No monthly maintenance fees
- Requirements: This account has no maximum monthly deposit
- Additional benefits: They have a tool called a savings assistant. You can use it to determine how long it would take you to reach your savings goals
0 comments
Spam comments and comments with links promoting other sites will be deleted by the moderator.