My GTE F CD matures next week, 4/16/20. Other’s are probably in the same boat!
What to do with $$'s ? Ideas…
Forum stops users from posting more than 3 consecutive times on a thread so I’m locked out over on the liquid accounts thread and can’t post today’s update until someone else posts something over there. But I think most of us follow both threads so here are today’s liquid account rate drops:
Barclay Online Savings was 1.60% now 1.50%
Sallie Mae Money Market was 1.50% now 1.35%
Bank5Connect Savings was 1.20% now 1.10%
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I am a bit confused regarding where to post this. This IS about a couple of CDs, but this is also about obtaining high yields on funds which are tantamount to being liquid.
I was just noodling around my NFCU account. Came across a couple of CDs which contain very little money:
2.75% APY ten month CD which matures end of April
3.25% APY seventeen month CD which matures early in June
Why the mention? Both of these NFCU CDs are add-on CDs. You might have 'em, too, and forgotten.
My liquid funds are currently earning 1.5% APY at PurePoint. At some point I can move money into one or the other of the NFCU CDs and earn a lot more. The money will be tied up for only a short time. When the CD matures, in each case, I get the money back. The money, while not technically liquid, will not be unavailable to me for very long considering when those CDs mature.
Take a look. Maybe you have CDs like that, too, and can put them to similar use as your maturity date looms closer.
You’re right shinobi. I do have both of these CD’s. That 2.75% matures 4/29, so to late to bother. Now the 3.25% CD matures early June. Almost to late for either one.
My GTE matures this Thurs. Then I will be deciding what to do. I know I need to pay some on Estimated Taxes + plus put funds into the Navy Roth IRA.(actually opened 2, spouse & me)
So life goes on! I may think about going back to PurePoint for liquid funds.
Yes that NFCU is still around. My GTE CD matured today. Don’t think it’s worth moving there for such short period of time. Probably go with UNIFY 2.25% add-on. Good for another year.
Any interest in Internet only bank?
BrixDirect by Cross River Bank. 1-Year CD 2.28%. Requires $50K to open an account @ this rate.
Easy opening process.
I can describe the state of the CD marketplace with one word:
depressing
Focus remains on institutional quality. PSECU still has not cut me off. I check daily. So far so good.
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I went ahead & joined BrixDirect 1yr CD 2.28%.
After research it turn out to be Cross River Bank (A+ rating) with a special offer of BrixDirect CD. Opening was very quick & easy. Opened 1/17 & next day I received Congratulations details of CD with Acct # & maturity date. Money is still in Alliant Checking but Rep told me should be taken out soon.
So all & all I’m pleased enough with $50K, 1yr CD 2.28%… 
Opened 4/17/20
To me, and in the absence of add-on opportunities, this seems a reasonable choice.
Personally, the idea of locking in an interest rate this low for, for example, five years, is not a smart course of action. Better to commit for only one year, hoping for more attractive CD opportunities thereafter.
Anyway, that is my thinking. The problem is I so easily could be completely full of prunes. Like pattyb53, I prefer to be hopeful about the future. One would wish for better days to lie not too far ahead. And one year is not all that far.
But GW Bush ran up our national debt by over five trillion dollars. Obama then added an additional over eight trillion, digging the hole far deeper. But it appears those guys were pikers compared with Trump:
I am hearing estimates added debt under Trump could easily challenge ten trillion. And Trump is in process of accomplishing in mere months the damage it took Bush and Obama many years to inflict.
CDs are a lousy investment to begin with. But under the circumstances things appear even worse. Our CDs are insured by a bankrupt country printing and spending phony “funny money” at a breakneck pace. The ascending numerical number of dollars appearing on our bank statements is unimportant. It is the purchasing power of each dollar that matters. And that purchasing power is today under attack by Trump and, indeed, by almost the entirety of the US government.
Bottom line, hope for better CD opportunities one year hence might be an exercise in fantasy. A country facing debt service on thirty trillion dollars will be in no condition to tolerate higher interest rates.
Don’t want to make this political, but attributing all this public debt to only Trump is not exactly right. The Democratic house is equally (or probably more) culpable. Every time Trump takes a spending proposal to congress, they double or triple it for good measure. For instance, the Democrats made unemployment benefits so attractive for the next 3 months that businesses are having trouble finding employees.
I did state that both sides are responsible. But Trump is in charge now, in the big chair. If we blame Bush and Obama, and we should, then fair is fair. Trump has the same veto those guys had. They didn’t use it then. Now neither is Trump using it.
True, but when you have a gun pointed at your head, you are likely to acquiesce.
Sadly, there is always that gun. It comes down to who sacrifices. Do those currently alive do with less? Or does government place impossible burdens on future generations so those alive now can suffer less?
And of course it’s the latter. This is less generational theft, and more generational highway robbery!
Very true. Try telling someone in our generation that SS and Medicare are not sustainable under the present circumstances.
To bring this back to certificates of deposit:
Our CDs are today, right now, insured by a hopelessly bankrupt entity, the government of the United States of America. The only way that entity, should a crisis envelop us, make good on our deposits is by printing phony fiat money currency hardly worth the paper upon which it is printed. It’s a joke. I also would make this observation:
Beneath the current economic circumstances, with America virtually shut down, there is no way the financial institutions holding our CDs can not be seriously threatened. It comes down to the size of each institution’s reserves. After that it comes down to the FDIC and the NCUA, two government institutions already alluded to above. There is nothing I can see here which inspires confidence.
No one wants to contemplate what you’re addressing because it’s too traumatic to think about.
What’s interesting is that many people refused to commit to CDs in 2008 because they were sure inflation would ensue because of ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) and the Fed’s runaway printing press. Interestingly, if you went down that road, you missed out on some very good CDs during that period. The inflation everyone thought would happen, didn’t. My takeaway from that is no one knows what the future holds even though it may seem very evident.
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If your fears become realized, it wont matter if the CDs are insured or not. It’ll all become monopoly money regardless. Investing that cash in canned goods and ammo is the only way to address the risk you’re talking about.
Agreed, goldendog. America has been saved so far, to a significant extent, by the fact that bad as things are here, they are even worse in much of the remainder of the world. Hence, we look good by comparison and we are able therefore to attract foreign support through their investments here.
Will Trump’s outlandish spending be the concrete block that finally breaks the camel’s back? It’s anyone’s guess.
Yup. Just like in Weimar Germany.