Savings Accounts

Free checking account This is the best checking account for the majority of people in most cases. Free checking is another way of saying “no monthly service fees or per-item charges regardless of the account’s balance or  its financial activity.” This means you may write all the checks you want, keep your balance as low or high as you want, and you wont need to worry about paying any fees. You will still need to pay a fee if your check bounces or you fail at some other criteria (like making an overdraft, etc). Interest bearing [...]

Proof of payment – Checks create a paper trail or a physical proof that you made a payment to someone. Every time you write a check that ends up clearing your account, there will be a number of records of it. Having this proof is useful for tax purposes (especially in the case you make tax deductible charitable donations) and anytime you are paying a person or a firm by mail. on your bank statement, in your checkbook, a carbon copy in the case you were using duplicate checks, a printable back and front picture of your cleared [...]

Before you ever deal with any bank of any type, in person or online, make sure to double check that they have FDIC insurance and that they’re a real bank. That being said, all of the banks on our website have FDIC insurance, are legitimate and have been in the banking business for quite a  few years. These are well known banks, but their names may not sound familiar to you (unless you read a lot of personal finance books and websites). One thing you always need to be make sure of when dealing with [...]

When choosing a savings account, you should rank the following features in order of importance to you. For example, you may decide that you will choose a savings account based on: Savings account interest rates Online banking features and ease Is the account free and whether they can waive their monthly fee with a minimum balance Long history of bank being in business, and strong bank brand name and reputation If the most important feature to you is that your future savings account offers a high yield interest rate, a good way to narrow down the [...]

Why use a money market account instead of a savings account? Think of money market accounts as a happy middle between CDs (certificates of deposit) and savings accounts. While money market accounts will usually put more restrictions on accessing your cash than savings accounts, money market rates and interest rates are actually similar to short term CD (certificate of deposit) rates – without locking up your cash for a long period of time, as CDs do. Money market accounts are perfect for deposits you don’t expect to access frequently but that you want have access to [...]

What is a CD (Certificate of Deposit)? A CD, certificate of deposit,  is a time locked savings deposit made by the purchaser and held by a bank in return for interest rate. Unlike a regular savings account, with a CD, you commit to depositing your money for a certain term (a certain period of time). Throughout that term (period of time) you earn a predetermined interest rate, paid out at predetermined intervals. However, cashing out your CD account early (before the maturity date comes / before the term ends) will usually trigger an early withdrawal [...]