Last week managed to get away from me. Work got kind of crazy when people finally caught up after all the snow. While it was kind of fun to have a few snow days, we’re definitely paying for it now. I’m hoping this week isn’t quite as bad.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve gotten a number of e-mails from the various online banks I use for my savings accounts. Once again, they have all dropped their interest rates. I’ve become fairly numb to it at this point. It used to really bug me when I found out rates were dropping again, but now it’s pretty much expected. Rates on my ING Direct savings account have dropped three times this year alone! On some level, it’s just nice to be making any interest on my money, though I do miss the days of the 5% interest rates.
I think what bugs me the most is the low rates on CDs. I just had another CD from my CD ladder mature and I didn’t even bother to lock it into another CD. I realize locking in a low rate is better than locking in no rate at all, but it’s just a little frustrating.
Does that mean I’m less likely to save? Heck no! If nothing else, it means I need to try harder to save since I won’t be earning as much interest. And someday, those rates may go back up again. Maybe not this year or next year, but eventually.
So don’t let it get you down, savers! Keep saving!
Megan is a 30-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:
In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance. It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information. It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck. While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.
While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.
Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.
So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan. I needed to budget. I needed to know what I was spending my money on. I needed to prepare for the future.
I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.
Just remember – it’s all relative. Your “high yield” savings account might only be yielding 1.02% now, but compared to 0.02% of a brick and mortar bank you’re still way ahead! 😀