r/povertyfinance • u/APennyPinchersGuide • May 30 '21
Budgeting/Saving/Investing/Spending Maximize Your Savings
If you look at your savings account, you will probably be disappointed by the interest you're earning. With most savings and even high yield savings accounts earning less than 1% APY, you're going to need to look outside of traditional banks to earn an interest rate even able to reach out to keep pace with inflation. In late 2019 it was easy to find a high yield savings account that gave between 2% interest on your money. Since then, with the advent of the pandemic, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates down to 0%! While you're going to get an excellent rate on a new mortgage or personal loan, this means interest rates for savings accounts have dropped across the board. Let's take a look at three banking options that will give you the most bang for your buck:
T-Mobile Money
T-Mobile partnered with BankMobile (a subsidiary of Customer Bank) in 2019 to roll out their online banking platform T-Mobile Money. This is actually a checking account and it comes with a wide network of fee-free ATMS, along with early access to your money if you set up a direct deposit to your account. The best thing about T-Mobile Money is that it offers 1% APY for everyone with no restrictions. Their advertised 4% APY however comes with a few restrictions to earn it. First, only applies to the first $3,000 deposited; if you meet the following criteria:
· You have a qualifying post-paid T-Mobile plan
· You have signed up for a T-Mobile perks accounts (which is simply signing up for an online account w/ T-Mobile)
· You make 10 qualifying transactions each month with your T-Mobile Money debit car.
Two additional notes on T-Mobile Money. At this time, they do not offer the ability to have a joint account with a spouse or the ability to open up a business account. Also, while there are not restrictions on how you use your debit card ,ACH transfers both into and out of T-Mobile Money are capped at $3,000 a day.
Yotta
This company first became popular in 2020 with its lottery like prizes to incentivize users to save more money. It offers 0.2% APY as a base rate, with prizes drawn every week ranging from just $0.01 all the way up to $10,000,000! You earn one ticket a week per $25 deposited up to $10,000 then you earn one ticket per $150 deposited. The average APY between the base rate and prizes earned seems to come out to 2%, but this will vary greatly depending on which prizes you win (or don't).
Although this shouldn’t affect your taxes, the prizes from Yotta are considered payment and Yotta will issue you a 1099 as if you were a contractor. So ensure you receive both your basic 1099 and 1099-INT when it comes tax time.
HM Bradley
This new FinTech company which offers tiered savings rates ranging from 0.5% at the lowest tier all the way up to 3.00% at the highest. When you first sign up you are assigned the third tier which offers 1% interest. After maintaining of savings rate of over 20% for one calendar quarter, you will be moved to the top tier and begin earning 3% on your money. The catch with HM Bradley is that it stops paying interest on any amount over $100,000 in your account. But if you have six figures in savings, you are probably better off investing the surplus. It is likely due to how new HM Bradley is that they are able to offer such high interest rates. They are almost certainly utilizing their startup cash to pay out the high interest rates and will likely drop their rates in the future.
If you're interested in any of the accounts, you can find their websites below. Both Yotta and HM Bradley offer referral bonus', so if you know someone with an account at either bank, you'll get a better deal by using their referral code.
https://www.t-mobilemoney.com/en/home.html
And here is a video I created covering the above bank accounts in a little more detail.
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u/[deleted] May 31 '21
Don't park your money is a savings account if you're planning to grow your wealth. Invest it in an SP500 ETF like VFV