Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

Are Certificates of Deposit (CDs) Still a Valuable Tool?

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Read just about any personal finance article on saving and you’re likely to also read something about certificates of deposit.  Heck, I’ve covered what a certificate of deposit is, how to create a CD ladder, and mentioned CDs several other times.  But, as much of a mainstay as they are in the typical savings mantras, are they still a valuable tool for savings?

Recent economic changes have certainly not been kind to many of us, and our methods of savings haven’t been treated well either.  The interest rates on savings accounts is terrible.  My local credit union doesn’t pay enough to even make it worth my while.  And online savings banks that used to be the poster children of high-yield accounts are paying less than 1%.  It wasn’t that long ago that a 5 year CD would have been paying 6-7%.  Now?  Closer to 1%, even at the online banks.  My local credit union is paying 0.25% on a 12-month.  (they apparently either don’t offer  5 year, or they don’t post the rates for them)

There are still some good rates out there though, if you take the time to look.  Well, better rates than what some are offering.  In the current economic situation, you can’t ask for much.  Click here to read more information on one such certificate of deposit.  But, even with rates that are closer to 2%, are they worth your time?  If we assume that the rate of inflation is somewhere around 3%, (I think it’s higher) aren’t you losing money by only earning 2% on the CD?  Yes and no.  If the money would just be sitting around in a savings account and making little to no interest, the CD at near 2% would be better than nothing.  Literally.

So, back to the question at hand.  Are CDs still a valuable tool for savers?  The answer, again, is yes and no.  No, because they aren’t the best tool.  There are other ways for you to make your money work for you.  They all make better returns than you would with a CD.  However, they all carry some caveat that you have to know about if you’re going to use them.  In many cases, the risk is higher.  Investing the money in stocks, or in something like Lending Club can get you much higher returns, but the risk is also much higher.  Investing the money into real estate, while a good passive income idea, is also a higher risk investment, plus the money is locked away in a non-fluid investment.  Treasury bonds can have higher returns, but often only at the cost of tying the money up for a long time.

If there are so many higher yielding investments to make, why are CDs still sometimes a valuable tool for savers?  There’s two really good reasons.  The first is that the money is not tied up for very long.  Even if you purchase a 5 year CD, you can still cash the CD out and only pay a small fee.  That fee is usually something like 3 months of interest.  As long as you’ve held the CD 3 or more months before cashing it out, you don’t lose any money.  So, the money remains pretty fluid.  The second reason is that a CD is an ultra secure investment.  That’s also why the rates are lower.  A CD is what is called a secured investment.  You deposit (hence it’s name, certificate of deposit) an amount of money into the account, and agree to leave it there for a certain period of time (the term of the CD) in exchange for a guaranteed return rate.  There’s very little risk at all.  Even if the bank you open the CD at goes bankrupt, you’ll be covered by the FDIC or NCUA insurance.

While I wouldn’t suggest putting a huge chunk of your retirement into CDs, (unless you’re nearing retirement) I would suggest putting something like your emergency savings into them.  They’re also a good tool for squeezing a bit more interest out of a new car savings, or a similar savings that has a mid-range use date. Just pick a CD with a term shorter than the length of time you’ll be saving up to avoid any extra penalties.

CDs don’t offer the greatest rates, that is for sure.  But, their lack of risk, and higher fluidity make them great for short and mid range savings.  And that makes them a mostly valuable tool for savers.  You just have to know where and when to use them.  Just like any other tool.

Do you agree?  What savings would you use a CD for?

5 Creative Ways to Save

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Piggy BankCommon financial advice is to pay yourself first; set aside your own savings before you pay any bills.  Yet, what happens if you don’t have enough money to pay yourself first?  What if you can’t set aside $100 or more each month?  How can you continue to save for your goals whether they are establishing a $1,000 emergency fund as Dave Ramsey recommends, saving for a replacement car so you can avoid a car loan, saving for a down payment on a home or simply saving for a vacation?

My husband and I are temporarily in a tight financial situation; he is finishing his Ph.D. and I am staying home to take care of our three children while doing freelance work at night.  While I expect our financial situation to improve in a few months when my husband graduates, we are now in the situation where we have little to save, yet we would like to begin to save for a down payment for a house.  We have found unusual, creative ways to save.  Utilizing these methods won’t get us to our 20% home down payment, but they offer a great way to start saving, and we will add to the savings when our income increases.  If you are trying to save more, try some of these strategies:

  1. Save all of the $5 bills that you get.  You are at the grocery store and you buy $33.22 worth of groceries; for your two twenties you give the cashier, you get back one single and one $5 bill.  Put that $5 bill into savings.  My husband and I have been doing this since June 1, and already, in less than three months, we have saved $175.  That is a savings rate of approximately $60 a month.  More importantly, that is $60 we didn’t think we had to save.  Sometimes it is painful to put that money aside, but in the long term, it is worth it.  Of course, this method works best if you routinely pay in cash.
  2. Save all of your change.  This is a similar strategy to the $5 bill strategy, but it is a little less painful because you will be saving less overall.  However, your savings will still add up quickly.  My husband and I used this method a few years ago to save for a weekend vacation.  We saved $300 in a year’s time.
  3. Save one dollar a day.  Another blogger I read was told at her wedding that she and her husband should save one dollar a day.  She and her husband did just that, and at their 10 year wedding anniversary, they had $3,650 saved, which they used on a 4 day second honeymoon.  Talk about a painless way to save, but what a great reward at the end.
  4. Save the money you would have spent on an impulse purchase.  Do you really want a pop when you are checking out at the grocery store, but you resist the urge?  If so, take the $1.59 you would have spent and put it in your savings account.  You would have wasted it on an unhealthy, impulse purchase; why not instead use it to your benefit and put it in your savings account?
  5. Have $5 or 10 automatically withdrawn from your pay check.  Even if money is very tight, you can probably sacrifice $5 a week.  If that is the case, arrange to have the equivalent of $5 a week automatically withdrawn from your paycheck and placed in your savings account.  Over the course of a year, you will have saved between $260 and $520.

Of course, there are many ways to save when on a tight budget; you just need to get creative with how you do it.  Also, don’t worry that the saving method you choose is not adding up quickly enough.  Saving something is much better than saving nothing, and once you become disciplined to save money regularly, as your income increases, you can save more.

photo credit: Carly Jane1

Credit Cards as Emergency Funds

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Everybody knows they need an emergency fund.  Right?  Right.  There’s some argument about how much to keep in your emergency fund, but the general rule is no less than $1000 and ideally 6-12 months of expenses.  And common savings strategies says that you should keep that money in a nice comfy savings account that you can access as needed.  But, let me play devils advocate for a minute here.  Let’s say you had $1000 in your emergency fund.  What could you do with that $1000 if it were freed up and spendable?  What if, instead of having your emergency fund in a savings account, you used a credit card that had no balance on it?

You read that right.  A credit card.

Take you’re average credit card with a $1000 to $5000 credit limit (higher if needed) and keep no balance on it.  You’ve got a ready made source of funds, up to the limit, that you can access from just about anywhere.  And, it frees up your emergency fund savings to pay down debt.  Or invest.  Or, you can still keep it in a savings if you want and just use the credit card to supplement the emergency fund so you don’t have to keep such a high balance on it.

Pros and Cons (My wife likes these lists and always makes me write one when making big decisions…)

Let’s look at the pros for using a credit card as an emergency fund.

  • Cash is freed up for investing/paying down debt.  Why earn 1% on your emergency fund cash when you could be paying off debt that you’re paying 10% or more on?  Or, that you could be investing and possibly earning a nice return on?
  • No balance needed.  The card would be dedicated to the emergency use, so you wouldn’t carry a balance on it unless you had an emergency.
  • Available anywhere.  You can instantly access your emergency fund from anywhere your card is accepted.  Which is virtually anywhere.

Now, let’s look at the cons for using a credit card as an emergency fund.

  • Card could be closed.  If you don’t carry a balance and never need it, there’s a chance that the card company could close your account and you wouldn’t be able to use it when you needed it.  There are ways around that.  You could use it for a specific bill each month and then pay it off just like you would if you were paying the bill normally.  Problems could arise if you don’t pay that balance though and fill up the card.  Then you wouldn’t be able to use it either.
  • Interest charges.  Nobody likes paying interest on anything.  If the emergency is big enough and bad enough that you aren’t able to pay it off right away, you’ll start racking up interest.  That can lead to a quick spiral into the same debt boat that you were in to begin with.  Or worse.

I don’t know if I could recommend using a credit card as your only means of an emergency fund.  But, I think you could make a pretty good argument for using one to supplement your current emergency fund.  Let’s say your goal is to have 3 months expenses in your emergency fund.  And that your expense are $5000 a month.  That’s $15000 that will just be sitting in a bank doing nothing more than earning 1% interest. If you’ve got a card with a $10000 limit on it, you could pare that down to just $5000 in the bank and use the other $10000 to pay off a bill.  Or invest in something.

I think the biggest problem with using a method like this is the potential pitfalls.  If you are unable to keep the card active and balance free, you’ll have problems using it when you need it.  If you do need it and are able to use it, but not pay it off, you could potentially end up in the deep water again.  On the other hand, if you use up a cash emergency fund, you still need to pay it off, but you won’t have to pay interest on the part you used.

Using a credit card as an emergency fund is doable.  But, I can’t suggest it for any but the most disciplined.  One wrong step, and you could end up having more of an emergency than you would have normally if you just had a cash emergency fund.  And that could lead to disaster.

What do you think?

Now, I want to know your opinion.  Would you consider using a credit card as part (or whole) of your emergency fund?  What about using a line of credit as an emergency fund source? Would higher interest rates on savings change your mind? What pros and cons did I miss?