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where do you guys keep your '6 mos. living expenses' funds?

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Capital One IntPlus Online Savings (Costco member)
1.30% APY and a 10% quarterly bonus on interest

So basically if I earn $300 in interest for the quarter, they pay me another $30. Effectively that earns me 1.44% a year.

To me it's pretty much the best deal for a liquid account right now. There are a couple that have a higher APY but they have weird restrictions and with the quarterly bonus I'm actually doing better with CapOne anyway.
 
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I keep mine at FNBO and ING. Simple and easy. Since its basically my emergency funds, I'm not too concerned with the interest the money makes. I'm concerned with the interest on my investments and such.
 
Bateluer said:
I keep mine at FNBO and ING. Simple and easy. Since its basically my emergency funds, I'm not too concerned with the interest the money makes. I'm concerned with the interest on my investments and such.
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interest on $50k with a good yield is not chump change.
i remember a time when interest rates were 5%. that's an extra $2500 a year.
 
you can look up kasasa to find banks near you with higher interest checking up to 10k-25k. the problem is that the both require direct deposit and debit card transactions. in my case the best/nearest one requires 12 signature debit transactions which makes it useless for me. i wont use a debit card that often. others without signature required, you can do things like buy X number of $1 amazon gc's with the debit card to add to your account.

another option for those that like to maximize exposure and have enough taxable accounts to withstand a 40-50% hit to the funds and still have enough to make your emergency needs is to invest your emergency funds into whatever combination of total stock market/total international market or whatever fund you like best and switch the same amount of cash in your retirement vehicles to bonds/stable value/tip funds (whatever floats your risk boat).

if you hit an emergency, you sell whatever you need out of the taxable accounts and move the same amount out of the retirement fixed income to equity. net effect is your asset allocation remains the same and you get to avoid taxes as your income generators are sheltered. if your taxable funds are up, great you made some money but have to pay more taxes, ideally the funds having been established long enough to get long term capital rates. if the market tanked, that sucks but, you get to now tax loss harvest those equities in the taxable side and get income deductions to offset potential future gains.

again, this only works if you have enough funds to withstand a potential 40-50% haircut in equities.

do i do this? not with my emergency funds. wife is less risk inclined as i am, so we do the traditional bit and have a nice worthless money market account to hold our 12 month emergency fund.
 
BlahBlahYouToo said:
interest on $50k with a good yield is not chump change.
i remember a time when interest rates were 5%. that's an extra $2500 a year.
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back in 2007, penfed was running 6.25% apr 3,4,5 and 7 year cds. i loaded up a ladder of 3, 4, and 5 year.. really wished i had gotten the 7 too nowadays.

another option to e-funds is to go the way of i-bonds. can invest up to i think 10k a year (5k paper, 5k electronic) per ssn. after a 5 year holding period, you can cash out without interest penalty. less than 5, you lose 3 months. though ibond rates current suck, should inflation rear it's ugly head, you're guaranteed to maintain value.

there used to be a time when you could buy 30k a year with a reward credit card and the fix interest component was something like 1.5% to be added to the inflation. them were the days.. if only i had money back then 🙂
 
1/2 in ingdirect savings and 1/2 invested in VTI (not including what I keep in my schwab checking account for reg spending and my 401k)
 
rcpratt said:
3% checking account.If you're getting $40/mo interest at 1%, you have $48,000. Seems a little high for 9 months expenses.

I have about $13k which is fairly close to 6 months expenses. Just investing my savings in the market now.
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Where is this at? Everywhere I go I'm lucky to get anything better than 1% unless I come up with $50K, in which case they'll give me a whopping 1.1%.
 
Anyone interested in taking the lead on an AT savings group/union? 😀

You could approach some banks to find out what sort of interest rates they'd be willing to offer in exchange for all of our 6 - 12 month emergency funds being deposited there.
 
Lifted said:
Anyone interested in taking the lead on an AT savings group/union? 😀

You could approach some banks to find out what sort of interest rates they'd be willing to offer in exchange for all of our 6 - 12 month emergency funds being deposited there.
Click to expand...

Sure, you can all make your checks payable to me, and I'll set everything up and make sure you get at least a 15% return.
 
rcpratt said:
3% checking account.

If you're getting $40/mo interest at 1%, you have $48,000. Seems a little high for 9 months expenses.

I have about $13k which is fairly close to 6 months expenses. Just investing my savings in the market now.
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Uh, he's 13, lives in his parents basement.
His "interest" is his allowance.

He could easily live on $40 for a year.
 
We have the money dispersed in money markets, stocks, and about a months worth in a ING Savings account. I'm not sure we really have 6 months worth though. Living life on the edge. If shit really hit the fan though... we have some assets we could lean on... 401Ks, paid off late model cars (2006,2011)... Plus my wife is a doctor... so I'm pretty sure she'll be able to find some work regardless of the economy.
 
bignateyk said:
Sure, you can all make your checks payable to me, and I'll set everything up and make sure you get at least a 15% return.
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Thanks, Bernie! I won't need the money for 20 years so you don't have to bother sending me any periodic statements. 🙂
 
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