I’m very pleased with my membership at PSECU. I opened the 36-mo 3.25% CD today. I love the idea that you can complete the whole setup immediately without help from a rep.
First, ACH transfer the funds into PSECU savings. All CD offers are right there in your account. Pick the one you want, move the funds from savings, pick any extra’s you want & finished. You see the CD & maturity listed then & there on your account. Perfect setup!!
Thank you for sharing your experience. Did you pull using PSECU or push in the funds? I was just wondering how much time it would take to set up this account, especially if the rates were to drop soon.
No, you would have no chance and you would be in a WHOLE lot of trouble. As I have explained repeatedly, the money has to move out of your CD before Tuesday in order for you to be able to pull it this Friday using ACH. Again, this is because the ACH debit will hit your account before opening of business on Tuesday.
Again, your only chance is with a paper check deposited on Friday. Checks are debited later in the day than are ACH debits. You would be able on Tuesday to close your CD and move the money to checking in time to cover the check, but not in time to cover an ACH withdrawal, which quite likely would be debited in the morning Tuesday before your financial institution even is open for business.
You should be more than just a little scared. Unless you can find a way to move the funds BEFORE Tuesday, doing this using ACH will overdraw your account. Don’t do that.
Your only option is a paper check deposited Friday . . . or wait.
Thanks shin… I’ll just wait until Tuesday. Sure glad to get your response…
I ACH transferred the funds from Alliant CU into PSECU savings acct. Alliant CU only takes 1 day for the money to show up in the receiving account. Then make your move to the CD…
Sure. There is stuff you try in order to make money. Some of those things, based on past experience, have a high likelihood of success. Other approaches have a low probability of success. Those you do not try.
I cannot tell you exactly when your financial institution will run those ACH files. In many instances such files are run, and accounts debited or credited accordingly, before opening of business.
But there are exceptions. NFCU and PenFed both are slow as molasses when it comes to processing ACH debits. You wait FOREVER for them to get around to it. And there are obviously other exceptions unknown to me.
But you have to go with worst case. And worst case is such processing happening in the early morning, before the financial institution even opens its doors . . . . . or its telephones! This leaves no opportunity for you to call in on Tuesday, close the CD, and transfer the money before the ACH debit strikes your liquid funds account and overdraws it; at which point you are toast since all this stuff is done by computers.
Thanks. It looks like you pushed money into PSECU from Alliant.
This is something new that popped up on my e-mail today…
AgFed Credit Union, 3.00% CD for 18 months, minimum opening deposit $250. When I see my Andrews CD money that matures 9/1/19 on Wed 9/3. This is one I will be checking out.
Thanks for posting! The rate is good, however, I saw this in their FAQ
The required minimum balance for your Primary Share account is $5.00. However, if the average balance in your Primary Share account is below $100.00 for the month, you will be charged a $2.00 Minimum Balance Fee. This fee is not charged if you have deposit and loan balances totaling $5000.00 or more.
This suggests that AgFed is not a membership you can sock-drawered to wait for their CD promos. When you are done with their CD, it needs to be closed unless you want to leave $100 there earning nothing.
EDIT: I asked AgFed about this $2 fee through their Facebook messaging system. Their reply was that they don’t charge this fee. They will update the FAQ.
For those going for the AgFed CD, if you are a new member, they are giving you $25 to open the account (reported on 1099INT). Basically, this will cover the $20 organization fee to qualify and the $5 in the savings account. Offer valid until 9/3 and you must not have an account with them in the past 12 months.
Scary post. At least it was for me. Here is my data point:
Back in March I pretty much closed out everything I had at AgFed and reinvested the money elsewhere. This left no other accounts at AgFed except for my savings account, which they call a “Primary Share Account”. The latter account contained the bare minimum of $5 plus the obligatory (in my view) $1 to allow for ACH trial deposits/withdrawals, for a grand total of a rip-roaring six bucks.
So upon reading scanchain’s post I went back to examine my AgFed account, which I had not visited for a while, fearing the worst.
Not to worry. My account is all good and tidy, just as I had left it, still sporting that mind-blowing balance of six bucks.
Q: Shin, you got an explanation for this?
Only possible explanation comes to mind is that it oftentimes pays to be a senior citizen. Beyond that, I have no idea why I was spared.
Good for you!
I got curious and scanned through their disclosures. There is no such fee. This fee seems to be only listed in their FAQ
Is the fee waived for grandfathered accounts & only for new accounts?
Here’s the link to AgFed’s service fees
The only relevant one is a $5 inactivity after 12 months.
My AgFed has a great CD 3.16% that matures 7/16/20. I really can’t remember when I opened it. AgFed has been good for me for the past ?? years.
I will have funds maturing soon 9/1. 
Will I go for AgFed- 3.% 18 mo OR PSECU 3.25% 36 mo?
Of course probably depends on whether either one is still alive.
I cannot tell you what to do. I cannot tell you what you should do.
But I can tell you what I, in the same situation, would do in a heartbeat:
I would opt into PSECU. And not on account of the higher interest rate. I would do it because of the longer lock-in period, the longer term. Way things look today, this is no time to be short.
And as an alternative to the PSECU deal I would even consider the NFCU 5 year CD which is also at 3.25%. Again, not because of the interest rate, which is the same as PSECU, but because of the two year longer lock-in.
Please help us… rates may still be lingering in 5 years. 
It’s important you realize this is only my opinion. Other contributors here will have different opinions and they all are just as meritorious as mine!! In other words, opinions regarding interest rate direction differ markedly. Here is mine:
To me it’s largely about politics. We all know what happened to our CD interest rates during the last four years of President Obama’s administration (our first four difficult years under Obama were on Bush and the gaping hole he left behind for President Obama). So if any Democrat wins next year I do not think rates will suddenly tick upwards. Democrats have other priorities, ones which do not mitigate in favor of higher rates.
As for Trump, any fool knows between now and the election Trump wants massively lower interest rates. That is more than a year right there.
That leaves, if there is a Trump victory, the years following next November’s election, roughly an additional three plus years on a five year CD:
I’m least certain about this part. Trump is unpredictable at best. If he wins there could be the same sort of euphoric business surge we witnessed last time, commencing post election 2016 and then on into 2017 and continuing until rates peaked even later. That surge gave us Sharonview and a couple of other 4% CD gift horses. If I’m wrong about interest rate prospects, look for my erroneous thinking to manifest itself post election if Trump wins.
Q: So shin, if Trump wins you think he will cease jawboning for lower rates?
That is a tough call (for me) and a difficult question to answer. But if you pin me down I’m gonna guess Trump, even if he wins, will continue to favor low rates, which would tend to keep our CD rates lower. Like I said, I am least certain about this part. There is a large measure of unpredictability associated with President Trump. But I simply do not see him jawboning for higher rates, even if he wins reelection.
Bottom line, my thinking on balance is that rates will not move significantly higher any time soon . . . . certainly not prior to the election.
If this prediction turns out to be bogus I will be back here in a year or two and edit out everything I just wrote that is wrong. Just hope I’m still around in a year or two and in a position to do so!
UPDATE: I asked AgFed about this $2 fee through their Facebook messaging system. Their reply was that they don’t charge this fee. They will update the FAQ.