| The last year has been rough on many of us. We were caught completely unprepared for the rough financial seas. Many of us are learning from our mistakes and taking actions to protect ourselves better in the future. Opening a savings account is a great place to start, but first you need to find a high interest rate savings account.
When it comes to opening a savings account you have more choices now than ever before. You don't just have to go down to your local bank where you have a checking account and open an account. There are many online banks that you can open an account with too.
Online banks have the same FDIC protection as offline banks but they often have advantages your brick and mortar bank can't match.
One of the most obvious advantages is a higher interest rate. Since an online bank has much, much less overhead they can afford to pay out a higher interest rate. Just think of all the money your local bank is spending on the building, electricity, property taxes, landscaping, employees, etc. That is a lot of overhead.
Doing business on the internet takes a lot of those expenses out of the equation.
There are websites such as bankrate.com where you can go to see a detailed list of some of the current interest rates being offered by banks. Having this information will help you make a better decision when opening your savings account.
Don't forget that interest rates are only one of the things you should consider:
1) How much money will you need to open the account? If you are starting small and the bank you are considering requires a lot of money just to qualify for a certain rate than obviously you'll need to keep looking.
2) Will you need to maintain a minimum balance? If so, how much and what fee's will you be charged if you fall below that amount?
3) Will you be charged every time you transfer money in or out of the account? If so, how much?
4) How easy is their website to navigate and do they have easy access to customer service? If you have a question you don't want to have to wait for 3 days for someone to get back to you.
Make sure you take all of these factors into consideration before opening your account. A high interest rate is wonderful but if all that extra interest income is just going to be spent covering your fee's it's not going to do you any good.
Take some time today to shore up your financial tomorrow. It's not that hard, all the information you need to find high interest rate savings account is easily available online. Do your research, open your account and when the economy turns around you'll be smelling like a rose! |