Investing • Page 68

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/06/jim-cramer-and-the-art-of-being-wrong.html

 

This isn’t really investing related just money related, but has anyone used a money management/tracking app like RocketMoney? Just wondering if it’s worth it as I try to save money for a trip in about a year

 

I've used mint a few times and always find myself just saying meh to it

 

I just make something ugly in excel. So many templates out there it’s easy to tailor it.

 

For me, Mint is pretty useful for budget tracking and seeing at a glance where all my money across different accounts is going. Mint also has a Goals tab you can use to budget for trips, but I’m not a huge fan of the UI.

The only thing that’s really worked for me to make sure I’m saving as much as I want is making my own spreadsheet.

 

We started using Goodbudget a few months ago and it's worked wonders, been night and day in terms of what/how much we spend

 

So 10 and 20 yr bonds are at 5%. Highest since like 2006. Tempting lock in some money for my kid.

 

can you buy those on treasurydirect too? I bought some ibonds last year when they were like 9% interest on there haha

 

You can do treasury direct or secondary markets like nyse. I'm probably going to do it through td I recommend watching some videos on how to do it, the process is kind of funky.

 

so I finally have the first quarter of my company shares granted to me. yay for assets! that said, someone mentioned that I should sell a portion of it and put it in a high yield savings account. anyone have recs for where to open one?

 

I like Ally - their rate is currently 4.35% with no min. If you can find something better than do that. I know some people like Marcus by Goldman, but I don’t trust that product lol

 

I use Marcus, why dont you trust them?! Now you got me nervous lol the majority of my money is in there.
They have a 4.50% rate. 6 month CDs are 5.25% too.

 

Nothing severe, just with it being a relatively newer product that Goldman is offering, and their risk with their Apple Card integration failure from last year - I'm just wary of Goldman shutting it down and having to deal with a buyout or transfer. Their rates are good, and don't worry your money is safe lol. They also just offer a much more limited suite of products than other services.

 

Question--what advantage do banks get for offering those high yield savings accounts? Like, what's the "catch"? Or is it just that it attracts more deposits and thus it pays for itself? I know a lot of them have account minimums, but you guys are saying there are some with no minimums

 

The catch is that they have more money to use for riskier portfolios. The FDIC insures that everyone would be able to clawback $250k backed by the Fed.

it’s so they have more money to play around with, and since Goldman has one of the strongest investment arms, it makes sense they can offer a higher yield

 

Most money market funds are going to give you over 5% right now. Easy enough to add some to whatever portfolio you have. SWVXX, VMFXX, etc. Easier than opening a high yield savings account which might have a higher minimum balance.

 

My understanding is that they aren't using it for riskier portfolios or to "play around with", if anything its the opposite. It's all tied to the federal reserve rate. Right now that is like 5.25 - 5.5%. Which means banks can get a 5.25%-5.5% return using the federal reserve, which is basically risk free

This means they can turn around and offer customers a 4.75 - 5.25% return and pocket the 0.5% difference, all still essentially risk free. And while 0.5% isn't too much, but when you're dealing with millions of dollars, even a fraction of a percent adds up fast. Bigger you are, smaller you can squeeze that 0.5% profit down to 0.4%, 0.3%, 0.2%... and still make enough money that it finically makes sense. And so the "catch" with the high interest rates is that if they went lower, another bank would still offer higher rates and everyone would invest there instead.

But this is why you didn't see HYSAs in 2020 -- fed rates were basically 0, so banks couldn't get that risk free money and thus had nothing to pass back along to their customers

 

One of the annoying things about dabbling with investing/bonds....over the summer I decided to try out a 4 week bond, made like $5 on it...just a pain in the ass that I now Ihave to include a 1099 when i do my taxes for that $5 lol

 

Anyone in on this new crypto boom? I was thinking about buying a bunch a couple weeks ago, didn’t, and am now kicking myself…

 

I sold mine to pay for my last semester of grad school. it'll go up and down again, don't fret

 

Yeah I’m thinking I may have missed the boat this time.

 

Just DCA Bitcoin. A little each month or week and forget about it for a few years.

 

That very well might be the play once things start to calm down.

 

Wish I had known about the first time home buyer rule with Roth IRAs. I didn't put money into one when I first started my 401k because I figured I'd just use it in my own investment account. Then today I look it up and see you don't have to pay taxes on up to 10k in earning for first time home if you've had it for five years. Too late now for that lol. I still ended up putting in the limit for this year since I can still withdraw at any time but that kinda sucks, definitely something I wish I knew earlier. I figured it's still good to start on that now.

 

Should I buy some AMC