[quote]carbiduis wrote:
What I’d loke to see is someone define the entire spectrum of places to put your money from short term to long term, for example (my stab with what I know):
Wallet (short term)
Bank account
Savings (what are the choices here, short to long term?)
Investments (stocks)
Mutual funds
Hedge funds
Bonds
Roth IRA
401k (longest term)
Im guessing there is a lot missing…
[/quote]
I’ll let someone else provide a more detailed response, but it doesn’t really work this way (long vs short) for a lot of these. Take stocks for example, you may want to invest in x stock for a short term gain while investing in y stock for mid or long term gains / dividend distributions. So it is pretty convoluted.
For most people a checking & savings account, a 401(k) type of retirement account, and an IRA will be your bread and butter for retirement purposes. [/quote]
Bingo. The level of risk in the stock market is tough for middle class to poor earners. The strategies outlined in your post are solid.
My personal strategy now is to pay for everything with a rewards card. Then auto pay it off with a debit/checking account. Then transfer everything not spent paying bills on to savings. I’m not sure it’s the best idea, but it does return better than a savings account.
[quote]carbiduis wrote:
What I’d loke to see is someone define the entire spectrum of places to put your money from short term to long term, for example (my stab with what I know):
Wallet (short term)
Bank account
Savings (what are the choices here, short to long term?)
Investments (stocks)
Mutual funds
Hedge funds
Bonds
Roth IRA
401k (longest term)
Im guessing there is a lot missing…
[/quote]
I’ll let someone else provide a more detailed response, but it doesn’t really work this way (long vs short) for a lot of these. Take stocks for example, you may want to invest in x stock for a short term gain while investing in y stock for mid or long term gains / dividend distributions. So it is pretty convoluted.
For most people a checking & savings account, a 401(k) type of retirement account, and an IRA will be your bread and butter for retirement purposes. [/quote]
Bingo. The level of risk in the stock market is tough for middle class to poor earners. The strategies outlined in your post are solid.
My personal strategy now is to pay for everything with a rewards card. Then auto pay it off with a debit/checking account. Then transfer everything not spent paying bills on to savings. I’m not sure it’s the best idea, but it does return better than a savings account. [/quote]
I think that is a really good idea as long as the credit card balance is paid off every month. I do the same actually.
[quote]carbiduis wrote:
What I’d loke to see is someone define the entire spectrum of places to put your money from short term to long term, for example (my stab with what I know):
Wallet (short term)
Bank account
Savings (what are the choices here, short to long term?)
Investments (stocks)
Mutual funds
Hedge funds
Bonds
Roth IRA
401k (longest term)
Im guessing there is a lot missing…
[/quote]
I’ll let someone else provide a more detailed response, but it doesn’t really work this way (long vs short) for a lot of these. Take stocks for example, you may want to invest in x stock for a short term gain while investing in y stock for mid or long term gains / dividend distributions. So it is pretty convoluted.
For most people a checking & savings account, a 401(k) type of retirement account, and an IRA will be your bread and butter for retirement purposes. [/quote]
Bingo. The level of risk in the stock market is tough for middle class to poor earners. The strategies outlined in your post are solid.
My personal strategy now is to pay for everything with a rewards card. Then auto pay it off with a debit/checking account. Then transfer everything not spent paying bills on to savings. I’m not sure it’s the best idea, but it does return better than a savings account. [/quote]
I think that is a really good idea as long as the credit card balance is paid off every month. I do the same actually. [/quote]
as do I … paid in full just like Rakim and Eric B. (For President? I’d vote for 'em)
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
If you plan on buying a house in the next 5 or less this thread was kind of pointless.[/quote]
Why?[/quote]
Where is your money at now? This thread started with asking about bank savings accounts. Do you not have a regular bank account? I assume they always have both checking and savings accounts and you often get both by default when you sign up.
If you’re just looking for a place to open an account with better-than-average interest, you can check out Kasasa | Bank local | Be proud of your money. The best you’ll find is probably about 1%.
I saw a headline about a week ago that said most americans don’t even have $1k saved up, and 21% don’t even have a savings account.
I thought ‘What losers, I have plenty more than $1k in my checking account, who needs a savings account anyway’?
I get the fact that 1% interest is nice to have, I just never understood the emphasis on a “savings” account, besides* the 1%whats the other benefit over a normal checking…other than the 1%interest? Aren’t we supposed to save up the 6mo of salary first, before we do anything else?
anyway, yada yada yada I taked to my Dad and Aunt about this on Christmas. I read an article that led me to Synchrony (previously GE Capital) which had 1.05% APY, and I was ready to pull the trigger. At the last minute I saw Ally Bank with 1% APY, they (Ally) seemed bigger and a slightly nicer website (this how we judge companies now) and 0.05% only starts to make a difference after having a lot of money in the account, so I went with Ally.