I don’t have an account with Vanguard, but use a similar fund with Fidelity (the Fidelity Money Market Fund - ticker SPRXX), which has a 7 day yield of 1.84%. That’s a lot better than these funds used to pay.
I still use the regular bank accounts for my non-retirement cash. It should be noted that money market funds are not FDIC insured.
Ally Online Savings increased to 1.75% APY
**too little, too late
This is why I like Ally and use as a hub, they trail the leaders but keep up with them reasonably.
The only issues I have with Ally are they used to be neck and neck with the competitors and now there is a substantial disconnect. 1.75% for savings vs 2.26% @ Northern, 2.05% @ Northpointe and 2.0% @ Virtualbank. On the cd side their no penalty pays a max of 1.85% for 11 months vs Agriculture FCU’s 2.40% for 30 months.
They still make a good hub but you are limited to sending out no more than $600,000 in a rolling 30 day period. You wouldn’t think this would not be an issue but with the recent rate changes I find myself unable to transfer funds to agfed until next tuesday due to previous cases where I passed money through ally from Bank A to Bank C to take advantage of Ally’s generous no incoming wire and large ACH outgoing limits.
I was grumbling more about this before agfed told me as an existing customer the account could not be setup online …they’d have to set it up and they’d give me a call back Monday or Tuesday to finish the setup. I verified I’m locked into the rate since my application process is started as my main concern was ensuring it didn’t go away before I could get money to agfed.
Ironically recently moving money out of agfed’s no penalty 1.85% cd to Northern’s 2.26% MMA put me right into the position of being able to go into the new agfed deal as it requires at least some “new money”.
Barclays too. Wiki updated.
Personal Savings AmEx is 1.75% too but you don’t hear them making a big deal out of it like Ally. Also, if this were FW, all that Northern Bank jibba-jabba in here would get tons of red. 
Still, Ally did jump to 1.65% and now to 1.75% in very short order…I have Ally and like them a lot but for a while was tempted to close because i started to get the feeling that they weren’t going to move up with at least the mid stream of the "rate pack’ so i am glad to see they are back in the game again! I also like to use them for day to day banking because of their very nice set up…And now i certainly WILL keep them open…
Let’s get ready for Alliant to match Ally on 7/1 - really wish Alliant and Ally would stay more competitive like the old days!
I, and I’m guessing the mods, haven’t said anything about cross-talk, because we don’t have that many users or that many things to say on here. I prefer some chatter to none to keep the threads alive.
But yes, generally if you have a lot to say about a particular bank (ahem @shinobi @pattyb53), please consider starting a thread. The wiki above has a column for links to bank-specific threads.
Updated.
Just a comment for thought…with the rates still low but coming up you might want to look at some of the cash back reward credit cards only if you are willing to set them to auto pay full balance at end of month so you use them just like debit cards. You can get 1-5% back depending on the card and category but even if you pick just one like the citi doublecash that’s 2% on EVERYTHING having the bank pay YOU to use their card is a great feeling. If you leave a balance on the card you’ve just thrown away any possible savings on that card for an indefinate period. Paying 15% interest and getting 2% back is still a 13% loss.
I have 3 that do rotating 5% categories per quarter. 1 that does 5% back in two categories of my choice…3% groceries, 5% gas, 3% back on restaurants, office supply, home supply…a decent spread that covers just about everything…if it doesn’t I can always purchase a gift card at a grocery store, drug store or gas station depending on what category is paying 5% back then use that at stores not normally covered. Buying Sam’s club gift cards which are also good at walmart when cards are paying 5% at “warehouse clubs” is a quick way to lower your walmart costs and those gift cards can be used to purchase your prescriptions at the walmart pharmacy.
There used to be dedicated threads that talked about the best cards to use for cashback but I don’t see them available in google searches anymore.
Do you mean like this thread? I believe it’s PINNED and appears at the top of the Finance category… or maybe it’s “pinnable”, so you can make it appear at the top for you.
Also interest rates have nothing to do with using rewards credit cards.
While it contains alot of useful info airline points and other rewards are all tossed in together where I was strictly referring to cashback cards. If the thread was more broken out then it would remind me more of the ones that used to be on fatwallet. The closest to what I’m talking about that’s still actively updated is https://www.nerdwallet.com/best/credit-cards/cash-back
I believe I was quite clear in stating that interest rates have nothing to do with using reward credit cards when I stated to set the card to auto pay full balance at end of month and never let it carry a balance.
NBD interest credited, and the correct interest of 2.26% is now showing as expected.
Appreciate the heads up. Yup, seeing the same in my account so no complaints. All as promised.
Strategy now is a division of liquid assets between NBD and AgFed. This means for Northpointe: See ya!
Have spoken with them. Their management does not appear to care. So neither can I. That said, the Northpointe reps are especially nice people . . . have not encountered a sour one yet. Just wish the bank could do better on its interest rate.
Interest posted for me at NBD as well. On the Account Information tab, it shows “Last Statement APY Earned: 2.26%” but also says Interest Rate: 0.00" right above it. Anyone else’s account look like this?
That’s where I put my emergency fund. The interest rate will consistently be close to the highest you can get at a bank. Technically I am taking on some risk with a MMF vs. FDIC insured account but I think it is negligible with this fund. It’s a good way to not have to chase rates all the time.
Mine is looking like that too.
To link an external account at NBD , is the only option for 2 trial deposits in & OUT (uses 2 of my 6 allowed out)
tia for replies
Are you trying to create external links from within NBD’s ACH system? If so, the trial deposit method is the only way (as far as I know).
But if you are trying to link to NBD from an external account, you might be able to avoid trial deposits. I created my links to NBD from Merrill Edge with instant verification (no trial deposits).
[quote=“scanchain, post:404, topic:2349”]
Are you trying to create external links from within NBD’s ACH system? YES
If so, the trial deposit method is the only way (as far as I know).
[/quote] My remaing question is, does NBD wihtdraw the trial deposits as 1 combined withdrawal or as t separate withdrawals? TIA for replies