I’ve been using MaxMyInterest since 2015. They list out the highest-interest FDIC-insured savings accounts and make it easy to open them and transfer money between them. They’ll also automatically track which of your savings accounts has the highest interest rate (if you have more than one) and move your money there. (Or if you have so much money that you exceed the FDIC limit … which somehow has never been a problem for me! … it can split your money into multiple accounts to get around that.) It also links with your low-interest everyday checking account, and will periodically transfer money back and forth to keep the latter balance at whatever amount you tell it. I really like that last feature, it saves me time and mental energy. They charge a fee of (currently) 0.08%/year × however much money you have in the high-interest savings accounts.
Some online reviews say there are delays in withdrawal from high-yield savings accounts from lesser-known online-only banks. Since liquidity is the whole point of having money in savings accounts, do you think it’s better to stick with e.g. AmEx and Ally?
The list of options and interest rates as of right now (2020-05-12) are here, so you can decide for yourself. (If anyone is reading this message in the future, PM me for an updated screenshot.)
I haven’t paid much attention to how fast the transfers go through because I’ve never needed to transfer money in a hurry. My vague impression is that it usually takes a day or so, I guess.
This only just occurred to me on reading your comment (and is probably obvious): many savings accounts have some limit of free withdrawals a year. But there are many savings accounts with close to the best rate—so just by splitting your savings across multiple accounts allows you to have more of your money in higher interest accounts with little cost
I think MaxMyInterest only lists savings accounts that offer unlimited free online transfers. You might think that there must be a trade-off of that requirement against interest rate, but that doesn’t seem to be the case; the rates are as good as anything on the market, even including CDs, as far as I’ve been able to tell the couple times I’ve quickly looked over the years. PM me if you want a screenshot of their current offerings.
I’ve been using MaxMyInterest since 2015. They list out the highest-interest FDIC-insured savings accounts and make it easy to open them and transfer money between them. They’ll also automatically track which of your savings accounts has the highest interest rate (if you have more than one) and move your money there. (Or if you have so much money that you exceed the FDIC limit … which somehow has never been a problem for me! … it can split your money into multiple accounts to get around that.) It also links with your low-interest everyday checking account, and will periodically transfer money back and forth to keep the latter balance at whatever amount you tell it. I really like that last feature, it saves me time and mental energy. They charge a fee of (currently) 0.08%/year × however much money you have in the high-interest savings accounts.
Some online reviews say there are delays in withdrawal from high-yield savings accounts from lesser-known online-only banks. Since liquidity is the whole point of having money in savings accounts, do you think it’s better to stick with e.g. AmEx and Ally?
The list of options and interest rates as of right now (2020-05-12) are here, so you can decide for yourself. (If anyone is reading this message in the future, PM me for an updated screenshot.)
I haven’t paid much attention to how fast the transfers go through because I’ve never needed to transfer money in a hurry. My vague impression is that it usually takes a day or so, I guess.
This only just occurred to me on reading your comment (and is probably obvious): many savings accounts have some limit of free withdrawals a year. But there are many savings accounts with close to the best rate—so just by splitting your savings across multiple accounts allows you to have more of your money in higher interest accounts with little cost
I think MaxMyInterest only lists savings accounts that offer unlimited free online transfers. You might think that there must be a trade-off of that requirement against interest rate, but that doesn’t seem to be the case; the rates are as good as anything on the market, even including CDs, as far as I’ve been able to tell the couple times I’ve quickly looked over the years. PM me if you want a screenshot of their current offerings.