I received my statement from my savings account on Thursday. I opened said statement and saw that the interest rate on my balance was 0.01%. I promise you that I thought there was something of a mistake. Let me preface this by saving that I’ve never really paid attention to the savings account since I’ve never really had anything to save. Now that I have the emergency fund thing going I am paying attention. So I called them. Yep, they verified that it’s 0.01% interest. Looking back over my account I see that they charged me a $4 service fee since my balance was below $1,000. So trying to save money actually COST ME more money in one month than they will pay me on my money over the course of many months.
Zipping on over to ING I see that they’re down to 1.85% APY. That sounds much better but I’m still shocked at the low interest rates that bank everywhere are offering. I’m not the only one either. Debt Kid thinks that high yield saving is dead. I’m not ready to declare it totally gone though. The guys over at Get Rich Slowly evaluated a bunch of accounts but the blogger over at Her Every Cent Counts found account that are still paying over 5% interest. If you’re willing to do business with a small FDIC insured bank (and I have) then they’re willing to pay you some serious interest. Why? Chances are that smaller banks didn’t do much high risk lending so it’s still business as usual for them.
Whatever you choose I am closing my saving account on Monday. I’d rather earn nothing in my checking account than pay a fee if my balance drops too low.