Saving $

So.. FH and I just combined our savings accts but that doesn't include anything we got from the wedding. He doesn't want to keep the $ in a reg. savings since they make no interest. He was thinking about a Money Market acct. but neither of us have any idea about these things. He wants some paper accts aside from my stock in carnival. But i'm scared lol.

How do you girls save $?

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Posted by cateydee

we put it into a sally mae money market. it was the highest interest rate at the time. money markets are good because you can take the $ out whenever you want, not like a CD. but if you want higher interest rate and you dont plan on using it soon, you might want to check out a CD.

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yes and no ... you can only make 6 (i think) transactions per month ... that includes deposits and withdrawals.

i have a money market also ... through Teachers Federal Credit Union ... had the highest interest when DH and I opened it (about 6 months ago)

ING Direct...

i have money go directly from my paycheck into the account and every week the same amount gets taken out of my checking and goes into the account...

What's saving??????

No seriously though, we have a Discover Bank online account. It used to be an e-trade account but then they merged. We put our wedding money in there and DH puts part of each pay check in it.

We have a 1 year CD that we just keep rolling over. We are not getting much interest on it but the point is just to keep the money out of reach.

In addition to that we have our joint checking which is money we received as wedding gifts. We only use that money for large joint expenditures (our car finance payment, car insurance payment & we recently purchased our everyday China). We also use this money when giving wedding & shower gifts.

Other then that we each have our own seperate checking & savings.

a Money Market account is just a savings account where they allow you to write a maximum amount of checks per cycle... usually about 3 checks... possibly 6 (altogether the electronic debit limitation is 6 per cycle, including checks, debit card transactions, electronic withdrawals or electronic transfers). The interest rate is usually higher than that of a savings account and even some CD's these days. You also usually need to maintain a higher balance in the Money Market.

Another option is to open an ING Savings or CD account, they tend to have better interest rates than traditional banks. ING also has money markets. I'd def look into them and check out the interest rates for each type of account and select the best one.

I work for a bank, so feel free to FM me for info if you need to.

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Posted by AwaitingAugust

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Posted by cateydee

we put it into a sally mae money market. it was the highest interest rate at the time. money markets are good because you can take the $ out whenever you want, not like a CD. but if you want higher interest rate and you dont plan on using it soon, you might want to check out a CD.

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yes and no ... you can only make 6 (i think) transactions per month ... that includes deposits and withdrawals.

i have a money market also ... through Teachers Federal Credit Union ... had the highest interest when DH and I opened it (about 6 months ago)

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You are right, to an extent....
FRB Requirements for Depository Institutions - Regulation D, applies to MMA and Savings accounts. It stipulates the maximum number of pre-authorized withdrawals (meaning checks, of EFT transactions which is debit cards) and electronic transfers. This limit is set to be 6 per cycle.

The number of in branch withdrawals (ATM withdrawals also) are NOT affected by this regulation and thus the banks can't impose a rule on it; or they would be heavily fined by the government. So you CAN make more than 6 in person or ATM withdrawals per cycle.

The point of this regulation is because banks reinvest the funds consumers place on deposit... the banks have to report how much money is on deposit and there's a formula to determine how much of those funds they can reinvest and how much cash must be left on hand (or available/free/not tied up). Savings accounts and MMA are meant to keep money in them and therefore these types of accounts are weighed more heavily on the calculation. Meaning banks can reinvest a larger % of funds on deposit in these types of accounts than they can for a checking account. That's why they charge you if you write out too many checks or use your debit card or electronically transfer too much money out of these types of accounts. They can also just change your account over to a regular account or close it if you do it more than I believe 3 times in a 6 month period. You have the same restrictions on a savings account, however most people don't realize because they don't usually have debit cards or checks with savings accounts. And if you have a linked debit card to a savings account, a checking account is used as the primary account for purchases and the savings can only be used via ATM transactions which hold no limitations.

ETA: Deposits are NOT included in the restriction... you CAN make a deposit into a MMA or Savings account at any time. And you can for sure make more than 6 deposits per month... there's no restriction on deposits. They want the money in theses types of accounts moreso than a regular checking account because they can reinvest a higher percentage of funds from these types of accounts.
The only real bank account that restricts deposits is a CD when it's not in the maturity period, which usually lasts only about a week. So for the most part you cannot deposit into a CD for the majority of the time.

I teach this stuff....