Comments on: Don’t Chase High Rates for Savings Accounts

By: Dividend Tree Potpourri – August 22, 2009 | Dividend Tree

Dividend Tree Potpourri – August 22, 2009 | Dividend Tree — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 02:36:34 +0000

[...] chase high income rates for savings [...]

By: John Hunter

John Hunter — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 14:03:36 +0000

I agree. It isn’t worth the bother to chase small gains. Most important to me is good service over the long term. Then, within that category, I look for good long term deals. I am very skeptical of bonuses, fake teaser rates (or fake teaser monthly fees for things like cable TV…). If you offer a good value be honest and advertise that. If you are so embarrassed that you advertise something other than your real long term offer I figure that is a sign you are not proud of what you will really offer me as a long term customer.

By: Roger

Roger — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 06:22:20 +0000

Hum, not bad, the way your use of multiple accounts worked out. Having buckets of money for different goals is a decent plan, one I follow myself. Good stuff, and I hope that you managed to gain plenty of bonuses by opening so many accounts.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:21:05 +0000

I see you don’t like Keywords in the name. :O)

I’ll behave from here on out. In my first comment, I had a purpose for doing it. The blog post it is linked to is something that has bothered me for years and I’m on a little “rampage” trying to get the right people to take note. Thanks for allowing the comment to stand.

BTW, taking advantages of the bonuses to push down the balances seems reasonable. Were there enough of them at the time to make a serious dent?

Have a great day.
cd :O)

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:57:44 +0000

@Chris: Multiple sub-accounts at ING are a great way to visually divide up savings, without having to open up multiple accounts at multiple banks. ING allows as many subaccounts as you want! Of course, rebalancing doesn’t apply there, because the rate will be the same for all sub-accounts. SmartyPig also has sub-accounts, but calls them “goals,” which makes sense with the way SmartyPig works.

Having multiple accounts for various goals was never my “goal,” it just worked out that way! My goal at the time was to pay off my credit card debt by taking advantage of as many cash bonuses as possible.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:47:15 +0000

I like your ideas on re-balancing, but you in essence chased multiple offers to get the desired goals of using multiple accounts for your various goals.

You could have one account but segment it in a spreadsheet or there is software like Quicken that allows you create categories for your accounts. The danger there is it looks like you have more money than you do and you may jump the gone when it comes to making the purchases that the goals have been set-up for.