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Checking and savings accounts, CDs, credit unions, fees, bank bonuses, payment apps, and transfers. Earn more on your cash and stop paying to hold it.
Credit unions are member-owned nonprofits, and their car loan and credit card rates average well below banks’. You can qualify for one through where you live or work, a relative who’s a member, or a group you belong to. Get a credit union quote before your next loan.
A money market account is a bank deposit, insured up to $250,000. A money market fund is a mutual fund that aims to hold $1 a share but carries no FDIC guarantee. Check which one you’re buying before you move cash, and keep money you can’t afford to lose in the insured account.
Open a savings account for your emergency fund at a different bank from your checking. The day or two a transfer usually takes is enough to stop impulse withdrawals. And overdraft protection can’t drain the fund when a thief empties your checking, nor can your main bank take it for a late loan payment.
A standard savings account at a big bank pays as little as 0.01%, while inflation shrinks what the money buys. Move your cash to a high-yield savings account at an FDIC-insured bank, which carries the same federal protection as a big bank’s account and pays many times that rate.
Use the Stash Stock-Back® Debit Mastercard® if you already pay for the Stash Plan, but don’t subscribe just to get it. Its 1% back in stock covers only your first $1,000 of purchases each month, so it earns at most $120 a year, just $12 more than the plan’s lowest price, $108 paid annually.
Split savings you won’t need all at once into four equal CDs maturing in 6, 12, 18, and 24 months, and renew each one as a two-year CD when it matures. After 18 months, your whole CD ladder earns two-year rates, and you can pull a quarter of it out penalty-free every six months.
Open Chase First Banking if you already bank with Chase and want a free debit card for a young child, with spending limits you set by store and amount. Skip it if you’d need a new Chase checking account just to qualify, or if your child needs to deposit cash or a paycheck.
BMO is offering a $400 cash bonus* when you open a new personal checking account and set up direct deposit. If you can route $4,000 in qualifying direct deposits over 90 days, that’s $400 in your pocket – and depending on the account you choose, no monthly fee and no minimum balance to maintain.
Open Lili’s free Core account if you only need business banking, and pay $35 a month for Smart if you want invoicing, bookkeeping, and tax forms in the same app. Skip Premium, whose extra $20 a month over Smart buys a metal card and faster support rather than more tools.
Most business bank accounts charge a monthly fee, pay nothing on your balance, and offer little beyond the basics. Grasshopper Bank is built differently. It’s a federally chartered digital bank that pays interest on checking, offers 1% cash back on…
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