Where do I Park my Money?

Clarence Thompson is owner and founder of Capital Connoisseur Group, LLC, a financial education and consulting company.  Capital Connoisseur Group specializes in financial management including Savings/ Budgeting, Mutual Funds (401(k), IRA), Stock market investing, Estates/ Wills, Insurance (Life and Health), Real Estate financing with over 10 years of financial services experience.  Mr. Thompson is a graduate of Temple University in Finance and Real Estate and later received his MBA as well. He is now lending his expertise to help you with your financial goals.

Where am I supposed to put it??  That’s the question that everyone always ask about where to “store” their money for the winter.  Don’t be silly…I don’t literally mean for the winter.  However, this issue perplexes many and it shouldn’t be some sort of crazy calculus problem you need pencil and paper for.  I’ll be completely honest with you.  You can’t start getting large increases or large returns on your money until you have some money saved!

So here’s what I know to be FACT.  The average traditional Bank Savings account interest rate is approximately 0.2%.  I hope you read that line twice, because it wasn’t a typo.  Banks are p[paying you near to nothing on the money you lend them, but in turn lend your money to others for rates ranging from 4% to 25% depending on the type of loan.  Of course you can’t store your money under your bed forever so here’s what I suggest.

Go open an online Savings account today.  Before you freak out they are totally safe.  Well as safe as the bank you currently use, where up to $100k of your money is federally insured.  The three I recommend in no specific order are Ally bank, American Express and Optimizer plus.  These three all have comparable and similar rates, which range from 0.85% to 0.95%.  I didn’t say you would get rich from an online savings account, however we often times need to park our smaller sums of saving somewhere accessible.  So if you must keep a substantial amount of money utilize the higher yielding online savings accounts.

If you have a financial question, please send an email to CThompson@CapitalConnoisseur.com