Rising Rates, Silver Lining? 10/5/22
- DavidNorman111
- Oct 5, 2022
- 2 min read
Hello NFC Clients and Friends,
Do you get tired of deleting Spam emails from your inbox? It seems my Gmail cannot learn fast enough to keep this dumpster fire from growing despite my “Mark as Spam and Unsubscribe” efforts. I guess it is just more evidence that the bots are coming for us all eventually.
Yesterday I received my 6th email from Ally Bank in 5 months, and I was thrilled! On May 26th, I was notified that my online savings account rate was raised from 0.60% to 0.75%, and I did nothing to “earn” this 25% boost in my savings. Note: I didn’t receive a similar email/rate hike from my other bank : ( . I have, however, received 5 more of these rate hike emails from Ally since, and it is still 3 months until Christmas!
While Lindy and I receive direct deposits and pay our bills through SECU, our savings account is with Ally Bank. As you can see below, Ally prides itself on offering one of the high-est online savings account rates in the nation. Pretty cool! As of yesterday, the interest rate is now 2.25%, which crushes the SECU’s Money Market rate at 0.45%, and checking account at 0.05%. Importantly, there are no minimum deposit requirements and no account fees associated with Ally. Other banks may offer higher rates, but be sure the fees and minimum balances are not prohibitive if you choose to use them instead. Ally offers a convenient comparison chart, but Bankrate.com is a valuable unbiased resource should you care to dig deeper.
The other neat, free FinTech feature from Ally— buckets!!-- for short-, mid-, and long-term savings goals. This 61 second video from Ally (click on “See how buckets work”) illustrates this truly powerful feature. I would be happy to help you set up buckets, or show you the buckets I’ve created for our account. Behavioral finance really kicks into high gear when you do this, actually inspiring the Normans to increase our savings as they are now earmarked for future spending we truly value. The fact that money is fungible and all earning 2.25%, combined with the positive behavioral impact of the visible buckets, makes it all the better! Bottom line, we all work hard for money, so it makes sense to make our money work hard for us. Moving your emergency savings and short-, mid-, and long-term savings to a higher yielding bank account is not an earth shattering move, but the aggregation of marginal gains (like this!) along the way can certainly improve your financial health significantly.
As you all know, I have no products to sell, and earn no commissions on anything I share with you. I don’t even know anyone who works at Ally. Come to think of it, maybe they should be paying me! Moreover, there are other innovative FinTech tools and Banks out there that may better suit your needs. If you are presently using something comparable, please share with me so I can share with our growing NFC community! Have a great day!
Yours in Financial Fitness,
David
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