High Interest Savings Leaderboard

[sahila]

HYSA are great but even better are buying money market funds or tbills.

Money market funds restrictions are they can be bought/sold during market hours and tbills have a specified lock up period, like a month or more. Both can be bought from your broker, it’s intimidating but actually quite simple.

For example buying money market vusxx fund today is giving an equivalent 6.25% apy for high tax earners in California - this is because much of it is tax exempt whereas hysa is not.

This google sheet has all of the current rates and is useful: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1v3fn3sZRvkSgqb-RnN2g...

[3pm]

And there is a way to pay no taxes on the growth. You need to have

1) a tax advantaged account and 2) a regular brokerage with 2x your savings

Technically tax is deferred or literally not paid if tax advantaged account is a Roth.

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Placing_cash_needs_in_a_tax-...

[thesuitonym]

It's my understanding that high yield savings accounts are still the best place for an emergency fund. A tbill might net you more money, but if you're still 8 months from maturity, how does that help you at all?

[roland35]

There comes a point where you are optimizing finances beyond what is necessary, in my opinion.

Have a decent plan for your cash so it's earning good interest, then go out and focus your time on the rest of life. Automate as much as possible. Don't worry about a few $10s of extra interest!

[soupfordummies]

I did some cursory reading on money market funds (MMFs) and I don't quite get the advantage if rates are roughly the same?

For instance, if there is a high-yield savings account (HYSA) option that gives 5.3% interest and a MMF that gives 5.4% (with a 0.1% expense ratio), would I not receive the same amount of interest in practice?

Not trying to disagree with you or anything, just making sure I understand the vehicle.

[giarc]

I'm just seeing a bunch of #NAME errors.

[7moritz7]

I don't see any reasons not to put everything into diversified ETFs. Low risk, reliably comparatively high returns unless the world economy or the entire US economy crash (which would ruin the value of almost every asset anyways).

[HumblyTossed]

> but even better

This is highly dependent on what the intended purpose of the money is.

[greyface-]

> tbills have a specified lock up period, like a month or more

What is this referring to? I've bought and sold T-Bills in the same week, and have never encountered anything about a lockup.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

Aren't money market funds only good today because of the high fed interest rate? If/when that comes back down so will the money market rates.

[lotsofpulp]

TTTXX at BoA/Merrill is another one.

Although, in a shit hits the fan scenario, I would expect to be able to access my FDIC insured account money more reliably than a money market fund.

[throw0101c]

For the Canadians in the audience:

* https://www.highinterestsavings.ca/chart/

* https://www.ratehub.ca/savings-accounts/accounts/high-intere...

There are also 'HISA ETFs' like CASH.TO:

* https://moneyguynow.com/best-canadian-high-interest-savings-...

However note:

> The biggest difference between HISA mutual funds and HISA ETFs is that ETFs are not CDIC-insured. This occurs because HISA mutual funds allow investors to be registered with the deposit institution as individual depositors, whereas a HISA ETF bundles the sums provided by all investors and invests the proceeds in the ETF’s name. However, HISA ETFs mostly invest with systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs), which are subject to greater regulatory requirements than non-systemically important ones. In Canada, we have three types of SIFIs.

* https://www.pwlcapital.com/high-interest-savings-account-etf...

[voisin]

> There are also 'HISA ETFs' like CASH.TO

FYI, I tried to buy this in my TD Direct Investing Account and it wouldn’t let me. I called in and found out TD had blocked trading for any clients in CASH and there was another similar ETF, the #1 and #2 most liquid high interest savings ETFs around. I was told that to trade in these I had to open up a managed account (and pay fees to TD, negating part of the benefit of these ETFs).

I thought this seemed highly unethical and inappropriate and so I contacted a variety of regulators (even trying to find which regulator had oversight of this was a major pain!) only to be told that there is no requirement for investing platforms to be neutral conduits to the markets and that they have full authority to block trading to help their other competing businesses.

Canada: where corrupt self dealing by the oligopolies is the name of the game.

/endrant

[dghughes]

A Canadian Tire TFSA ??? WTF? lol

[iav]

Not to overcomplicate things, but anyone planning to save money for >12 months should be using the BOXX ETF (https://etfsite.alphaarchitect.com/boxx/) to convert the interest income into a long-term capital gain. Even if you end up cashing out before the 12 months, you are still going to pay the same taxes as with a savings account, so there is truly no downside.

[paxys]

While it may be tempting to pick whatever is on top of the list, you should make your decision after factoring in bank locations, reputation, customer service, online tools, ATMs, fees etc. rather than just go for the extra 0.04% in interest.

[LVB]

Marcus recently locked my account for unspecified reasons and it took a couple weeks to unlock simply because they weren’t allowed to send a verification code to my phone since it was on a prepaid plan (?!?). Quite nerve-wracking to have all of your “safety” funds inaccessible and stuck behind fairly helpless front line agents that offer no escalation path.

[PieUser]

Theres a much more comprehensive list here: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/high-interest-savings-to-get/

[grumpwagon]

Also, I believe doctor of credit is not funded by affiliate links like most sites that list this stuff are (including the GP link, I believe)

[Kon-Peki]

If you can handle not being FDIC insured, check out Ford Interest Advantage. This is the money that Ford uses to fund auto loans. In practice, it works like a checking account with ACH deposits/withdrawals.

5.5%

https://www.ford.com/finance/investor-center/ford-interest-a...

[hn8305823]

Top of market interest rates are a signal that the bank needs capital (yours).

Be careful with more than $250k in any one regional bank right now.

[bombcar]

That's a good rule of thumb for anyone (but if you have a quarter million in cash equivalents you're probably a business or super-wealthy).

I wonder if anyone has done a correlation study with bank failures vs CD/HYSA rates. The ones I know of that "everyone" flowed into have survived.

[userabchn]

Kaupthing [1] was offering very attractive interest rates in 2007.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaupthing_Bank

[keeganjw]

This seems like a fair assessment. Especially for all these tiny banks that are absolutely not too big to fail.

[jccalhoun]

I've been using depositaccounts for years to check rates for savings and CDs https://www.depositaccounts.com/

[velcrovan]

If you're a US citizen, don't sleep on I-bonds for your emergency fund.

The current rate for I-bonds is 5.27%. It adjusts up or down automatically with inflation. The only catch is you can't put in more than $10k per calendar year, and if you withdraw before 5 years you give up 3 months of interest. Much, much better than a CD.

https://treasurydirect.gov/savings-bonds/i-bonds/i-bonds-int...

[maerF0x0]

afaik it includes more than citizens such as Permanent Residents (Green card).

but i cant find a definitive place that says who's eligible

[ryandrake]

Optimizing one's savings rates always seemed to me to be high effort, low reward. Like coupon clipping or credit card churning. You either live with convenience and low returns or you get a slightly better return by making "opening new accounts" your entire life.

I already have a credit union account for checking, multiple brokerages, an HSA account, a 401(k) account (different from my brokerages), a Roth IRA account, a 529 account, an account at TreasuryDirect, and probably others I'm not thinking of. Now if I want the best yield savings, I need to open yet another bank account? If I want the best CD rates, I'll need further another account? Yuck!

And when I want to move funds from one asset class to another, it's a ACH transfer or some other needlessly multi-day transfer from one institution to another. It's exhausting.

[ourmandave]

There is some missing nuance if you just look at the list.

Orion FCU is listed at 0.01%, but you can get 6% (on the first $10K) if you open a premium checking acct.

Although you have to deposit at least $500/month and use the atm card as much.

Not exactly what people with large amounts outside their network are looking for, but still.

[BitwiseFool]

These sorts of accounts are just not worth the hassle. The interest rate seems spectacular but it's contingent on satisfying conditions that are easy to miss each month. Plus, the fallback rate is punishingly low. When looking at the effort required compared to a "normal" savings account, it's a terrible deal.

[ssgodderidge]

This is cool! I'd love to also see the leaders' rates over time, rather than a point-in-time snapshot. Switching banks is relatively time consuming. I'd prefer to choose a bank with the highest rate over the last 1yr, 2yr, 3yr+ periods.

[decafninja]

HYSA may not be the absolute best thing, but they're simple enough for dumb laymen like me.

At some point I might transfer some, or all, funds out of my HYSA but for now it's good enough to park things in while I do some more research on what options I have.

[scruple]

The list is missing American Express HYSA. It's at 4.35% APY.

[eli]

Using a convenient bank is more important than squeezing a few more basis points in yield.

[Gooblebrai]

Great idea. Would love to have the same for the UK!

[padolsey]

Raisin: really easy mobile app: https://www.raisin.co.uk/

Flagstone: 10k minimum, old-school but well-trusted, great rates for higher deposits: https://www.flagstoneim.com/

E.g. on flagstone you can get over 5% instant access if you're prepared to put £10k or more away.

[fotcorn]

Here you go: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/savings-accounts-b...

[frereubu]

My accountant directed me to https://moneyfactscompare.co.uk/savings-accounts/ which I've used quite a bit over the years. Haven't compared it to other comparison sites, but it seems to be pretty good for most basic financial stuff like mortgages too.

[asystole]

Monzo gives me 4.6% instant-access and I manage it from the same app I manage my current account in. My savings are fairly modest so it really doesn't seem worth the bother to shop around for an extra ~0.4%.

[beejiu]

https://bankaccountsavings.co.uk/

[supsep2]

Trading212 is giving 5% interest for uninvested cash. I started using trading212 and it’s been solid so far.

[TMWNN]

I really miss how Vanguard used to allow writing checks from its brokerage account;[1] it combined the best of savings and checking accounts (complete with a six transactions-per-month limit, back when that was a thing). Is there something like it elsewhere? I have accounts at Vanguard and Schwab; I think I've heard that there is something like it at Fidelity but don't know anything about it.

[1] I am not talking about <https://personal.vanguard.com/us/whatweoffer/accountservices...>

[latchkey]

VIO Bank is classified wrong and should be at the top of the list.

https://www.viobank.com/cornerstone-money-market-savings

[aketchum]

I opened a Sofi account when interest rates started rising after having only a Truist account paying 10 bps. Sofi paid $300 bonus and that was what actually got me to actually make the switch (their average cac must be over $400!). Its so interesting how the switching costs are very low but still feel high enough that it is tough to actually open new accounts even when you can easily earn $500 extra per year per $10k in balance. I wonder if fedNow adoption will make it more common to bank hop without the delays of the ach network

[smallmancontrov]

Figuring out how to shit up outgoing transfers is a core competency of any financial institution, so I wouldn't count on fedNow to save us without additional standards forcing good behavior.

[gfiorav]

For folks who don't know: In these HYSA, every time the interest pays (monthly), it triggers a taxable event. This might be important for you to consider. If you invest longer term in bonds and good securities instead, you could time your tax better (i.e.: sell when your income tax is lower; retirement).

In the US, you can get "lifetime/permanent insurance," which has a cash component that can be invested in bonds and enjoyed on much better tax terms (eating less into your bond's return).

This is not financial advice.

[bombcar]

There are many tax-advantaged accounts and methods that would likely come in before "perm life insurance" unless you're an insurance salesman ;)