I’m no huge money nerd. To be honest I don’t have that much to play with. But because I am a server my wife and I must be more careful in some ways than the average family. One month I might make a couple thousand in tips while the next I might make a few hundred. It all depends on the sections that I’m in, the time of year, the number of nights I work, and the number of Canadians I serve (whats the difference between a canoe and a Canadian? Canoes tip!).
Anywho, so we have a small lump of cash that sits in our savings account to cover for the months when I make peanuts instead of dollars. It sits in our savings account that makes a whopping .79% interest on the dollar. Pretty sweet. Last year I think I made all of 1.25.
I write all that to say that we’ve found a new cool thing. There are banks now that are completely web based. They cut down on the overhead and pass on the savings to you. They come highly recommended by respectable money management nerds and are risky in no way. Now instead of making .79% we are making 6.0%! That’s 7.5 times more than we made in our regular savings account. We have full access to it, we can pull it out at any time. I know there are other ways to have your money work for you (Roth IRA’s, money markets, and such) but if you’re looking for a good ol’ free savings account (they even have checking) try it out at www.hsbcdirect.com
Who knows, instead of making $1.25 this year we’ll walk with nine bucks and some change.
Musings From The Ground Up
Initiating a new grassroots movement in downtown Vancouver
Thought you might be interested in this… http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/03/21/whic…
Updated link…http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/03/21/
That's cool. I wonder how much our 50 bucks would have been making. It's been in there for a few years now!
I can vouch for that. Check out ING as well. We have been there for a few years. We love it. As good of return as a CD, but your money isn't locked up. They have just recently started checking accounts at 4% as well. I'm in the middle of doing a little research to find out how the whole thing works since you can't deposit checks into it. I'll let you know!
what does that whole "Thru April 30th" thing mean? Does it mean that you only make that 6% until April 30th? what does the percentage go to after that? Or does it just mean that you have to get your money in there before then? Really, I'm just too lazy (which is funny because I'm bored out of my mind right now) and I want you to do the research for me.I'm a big fan of money doing the work for me (and you, apparently). I'm only using a boring old Money Market though…. I think I might switch it soon though cause it's just not doin it for me….. I don't know what I'm talking about.
Arwen,The money in the account will get 6% interest until April 30th. After that it goes to 5.05%
thanks Brint.
HSBC is a major mortgage company: they use your money to back the files they close before the sell them to investors. That's not a bad thing: it's kinda like a mini-mutual fund – they pay you high returns when you allow them to "hold" your money and use it to allow them to make a LOT of money. As long as you have immediate access to your cash, it's a great deal.Note: some of the offers take up to 4 weeks to actually send you your money when you withdrawl – watch out for those ones!
That's one of the benefits of hsbc is that we have a debit card so we can withdraw money on demand.