How to Get a HIGH Interest Rate on YOUR Money SAFELY (Banks, CD's T-Bills)

Hey, financial warriors! Now, we all love money, and that's probably why Americans failed to pay a record of $688 billion in taxes in 2021, according to the IRS. They want to hold on to that money for themselves. And I don't blame them. Or us. I mean, well, I paid all of mine. But if you are holding on to cash because you didn't pay taxes, or for legitimate means, you may be looking for some way to make a return on that money. And we're not talking about a get-rich-quick scheme. Sounds like a get-rich-quick scheme. Thank you. You will get rich quick. We all will. Didn't you lose a lot of money on that other investment? When the son of the deposed king of Nigeria emails you directly, asking for help, you help. But a way to safely earn a good percentage on your money without exposing yourself to the ups and downs of the stock market. I'm sure that's what the king of Nigeria would want too. Well, you are in luck, because with the Federal Reserve raising interest rates, you can now, for the first time since like 2007, get a 5% or higher interest rate on your cash, safely in a bank account or a few other types of very safe investment vehicles. In this video, I want to give you three places where you can get these rates. And obviously, we won't be talking about comedy savings accounts like from Chase or Bank of America with a 0.01% interest rate. But if you want a safe investment, there are basically three things you can do, in my opinion. High interest savings accounts. These are typically provided by smaller or online-only banks. CDs. This is where you lock up your money for a period of time for a guaranteed rate, often higher than a savings account. And treasury bills. This is where you lend your money to the US government. And the rate on these short-term bills is pretty high right now, higher than most savings accounts and even higher than some CDs. And they're also exempt from state and local taxes. There are also corporate bonds you could buy, i.e. the debt of companies. But I think you really need to be more knowledgeable to avoid risk. So I'm not going to talk about them in this video. The three above should be totally safe unless we see something like the US defaulting on all its debt payments and society breaking down. But then I think you'd have bigger problems to deal with. All right. Let's talk about high interest savings accounts. Now, I often like to talk about Redneck Bank in these videos because they often have the best interest rate with no minimum deposit. And, guys, they are a real bonafide bank. Look, it says right there. Their check-in account pays 5.3% on balances of up to $15,000. That goes down to almost zero above $15,000. They also have their money market account that earns up to 5.05% APY on up to $100,000 with no minimum balance. But they are not the number one anymore because the highest rate on a savings account that I could find is with Popular Direct, who are offering 5.4% APY on your money with just a $100 minimum deposit to open the account and no monthly service fee. And in case you've never heard of this bank before, they are indeed FDIC insured. So your money is covered up to $250,000 as which is standard in the US. A real bonafide bank, even though it doesn't say that on their website. But I want to give you one more suggestion where you can get a good interest rate, a cash bonus for opening the account and FDIC insurance up to $2 million. And that would be with SoFi. Their interest rate on their savings account is 4.5%, which is respectable in this current environment. They beat big names like Capital One, Amex Personal Savings, Barclays, etc. But there are two cool things about SoFi. One is there's actually a $250 welcome bonus for signing up and making a deposit. You earn $50 for a deposit of between $1,000 and $4,999 and $250 for a deposit of over $5,000. To put that in perspective, if you deposited the minimum to get the $250, which is $5,000, you would earn $225 in interest in a year as long as the rate stays constant at 4.5%. So getting an additional $250 effectively more than doubles the return you get in your first year of having the account. You're getting over 9% back. In addition to that, with SoFi, you can enroll in additional FDIC insurance, which protects you for up to $2 million in deposits. And this is because SoFi deposits your money in a variety of different banks. They have 12 banks in their program at the moment, and each bank can insure you for up to $250. And SoFi will offer up to $2 million in insurance spread across different banks. Just FYI, if you had other accounts with any of those banks, that would also count towards your $250,000 limit with that particular bank. So would reduce your SoFi insurance by however much you had in there. Now, this is the only one in this video that I have an affiliate link for. So if you are interested in a SoFi account, do click the link below for a 4.5% interest rate and a $250 bonus. All right, now let's talk about CDs. Considering its quality and size, the compact disc most certainly will become a part of our everyday lives in the future. Producer Tom Tomaszewski has that story. Yeah, not quite what I had in mind. And what was with that haircut? Anyway, in the banking industry, CD stands for Certificate of Deposit. Here is the definition from Investopedia. A certificate of deposit or CD is a savings product that earns interest on a lump sum for a fixed period of time. CDs differ from savings accounts because the money must remain untouched for the entirety of their term or risk penalty fees or lost interest. CDs usually have higher interest rates than savings accounts as an incentive for lost liquidity. So basically, it means you have to lock up your money for a period of time, but you will get a higher interest rate than a savings account and it won't fluctuate in value like stocks would. Now, some of the best rates right now on CDs are from a bank called Total Direct Bank. They certainly have the best three month rate at 5.66% APY, but you have to put a minimum of $25,000 into an account to get that APY. Great if you want to put that much in, but if not, then you'll need something else. Forbes cites a bank called Community Wide Federal Credit Union from Florida as the best six month CD rate at 5.5%. The minimum deposit is just $1,000. And six months is a great length if you are saving for your taxes as you'll get your money back pretty much on tax day next year. Obviously, if you're even a day or two late in paying your taxes, you may have some small penalty, but that could easily be cancelled out by earning a higher interest rate. Then for one year CDs, that same bank is offering 5.6% and another one, Bread Financial, is also offering 5.6% and that one has a minimum deposit of $1,500. Then as we look to two year CDs and beyond, we see rates coming down. And this is because banks expect the Fed to cut interest rates in the future. 2024 is an election year and you know, the Fed is supposed to be independent and all, but in reality, Jerome Powell is probably going to try and help out the big guy by lowering interest rates to give the economy a boost. Just a hypothesis, no political agenda towards either side here, but that's what I'm assuming. So anyway, six month CDs will get you the best interest rate. Just remember you have to hold them for the entirety of the six month term in order to get that rate. You may lose some or all of the interest if you withdraw money early. So make sure you read the terms of your specific product that you've signed up for. All right, let's now move on to treasury bills or T-bills and in particular, the six month T-bill. Now, these are a type of government security and there are basically three types you can buy bonds, notes and bills. Bonds have terms of 20 to 30 years. Notes are between two and 10 years and bills are measured in weeks up to the longest, which are 52 weeks or obviously that is one year. I like to look at CNBC to get the current interest rates for different lengths of treasury bills. And you can see here that the six month treasury is the highest at almost 5.6% and it's pretty stable at that level that has been there for several months. Now, the standard way that most people buy treasury bills is through the government website, treasury direct. Now, a lot of people say that it's a website that feels like it's from the 90s. It's not that user friendly, et cetera. And it is a pain to sign in since you need an account number, which they sent you when you opened your account. So you have to go back and look through your email to find that you can't just use your email address as a username. And then they send you a one time password that also arrives in your email. So you have to go back to your email and get that. And then you finally type in your regular password. And this little picture up here is supposed to remind you that this is really your account and not a scam. But anyway, once you're into your account, it's pretty straightforward. You buy bills at auction so you don't know the exact rate before you purchase, but you can get a good idea from searching the previous auction results on treasury direct or looking at rates on sites like CNBC. You buy at a discount. So, for example, you pay $97.50 for a six month $100 treasury bill and you get $100 back six months later. And the difference between the price you paid and what you get back is your profit. So in this case, $2.50. I have another video that shows you how to buy T-bills on treasury direct. It looks like this and I will put it on the end screen of this video if you want to check it out. Now, obviously, like with CDs, you have to hold for six months or however long the duration is of the bill you bought. Another way of buying treasury bills is on public.com. And using that system, you can cash out early, but they do take a small monthly fee for their service. Some people may find it still a good way to buy T-bills, though. And I have another video on how to buy T-bills using public. It looks like this. And I also put that one on the end screen of this video, too. All right, guys. So that is three different ways to get a high interest rate on your money in fall 2023 with pretty much no risk. I hope you enjoyed that and got some value out of it. And don't forget to check out SoFi in the links below for a 4.5% interest rate and a $250 bonus with qualifying deposit. Please subscribe to our channel if you're new for more personal finance tips and tricks. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.