What to do with shortish-term cash? [Archive]

bae

3-10-21, 6:47pm

If you had a noticeable amount of cash sitting around, that you expected to spend over the next two years for your living expenses, where would you stash it to earn *something*?

Interest rates on savings/money market seem to be approximately 0.02%, so a six-figure sum on deposit seems to earn about.....$0/month, rounding down to the nearest dollar...

Any clever ideas appreciated.

Tybee

3-10-21, 7:09pm

If you had a noticeable amount of cash sitting around, that you expected to spend over the next two years for your living expenses, where would you stash it to earn *something*?

Interest rates on savings/money market seem to be approximately 0.02%, so a six-figure sum on deposit seems to earn about.....$0/month, rounding down to the nearest dollar...

Any clever ideas appreciated.

Not very clever, but I would put it in Ally and make .6% in a money market checking account.

bae

3-10-21, 7:29pm

Not very clever, but I would put it in Ally and make .6% in a money market checking account.

That's about .6% better than the current situation, so thank you!!!

Tybee

3-10-21, 7:38pm

Of course!

Oh, shoot, edited to add I just went on to check and the accounts are down to .5%. Sorry I mis-represented the interest.

New one year cds are at .6 and then if I renew they add .05 to that.

Rogar

3-10-21, 8:28pm

My emergency fund is in a 6 month CD hoping for high interest rates. I might check out building a 2 year CD ladder with maturities coming due around the time you might use the money. I suppose an investment firm might build a similar investment grade corporate bond ladder for a little higher return. No idea how the numbers might turn out. I don't get creative with my emergency fund.

SteveinMN

3-10-21, 10:25pm

I think laddered CDs would be my choice. I-Bonds could be another choice, but they might be cumbersome to buy and redeem depending on when you need the money and there's a fairly low limit on how much you can invest in them.

pinkytoe

3-10-21, 10:54pm

I have a savings account with Ally. Though it has gone from 2% to .5, sure beats a regular bank's rate for stashing short-term funds.