As someone who is rather financially illiterate, are there good websites to read up on this stuff?

My local bank where I've kept too much money in a passbook savings account (stupidly earning almost no interest) is discontinuing all passbook accounts but allowing you to turn them into either similar savings accounts (managed mostly online with no passbook) or money market savings (earning better interest) or 6-mo. or 1-year CD's with pretty good interest rates right now.

Or I could take money out and put it into other things, but I don't know about the wider world of savings plans or online banks or whatnot.

Any advice appreciated.

get a vanguard account and put it in an index fund that tracks the dow. for now.

then maybe you should hire a fee-only financial planner to help you with your whole picture.

Yes as to Vanguard. If you want to replicate the zero investment risk (but opportunity risk) feature of your savings account, put it in a money market fund at Vanguard.

With mutual funds, you always want a lower expense ratio. Trying to pick a better manager is almost always a worse strategy if it comes with a higher expense ratio. Vanguard and Fidelity have the lowest expense ratios, generally.

yes, the money market account at Vanguard pays about 5.25% right now. If you prefer an in person experience and have a local Fidelity office their money market account pays almost the same rate and their customer service is a bit better.

if you would like the total comfort of the FDIC insured deposits, the online banks, allied and synchrony are probably the two best for me. They both pay about 4 1/2% on online savings account and you can get short term CDs at five to 5.1%.

if you were a little more adventurous and have a brokerage account somewhere, you can get about 5.4% on a short term treasury bill or a brokered certificate of deposit but that’s a little more hassle than some people want to bother with.

this is a subject I unfortunately know way too much about because one of my current jobs is setting interest rates for a bank…

If we give you doughnuts, will you lower the mortgage interest rates?

quote:

Originally posted by Nina:
If we give you doughnuts, will you lower the mortgage interest rates?

yes, please?

quote:

Originally posted by Nina:
If we give you doughnuts, will you lower the mortgage interest rates?

I feel like you are…. Making fun of a banker.

I’m sorry, but it’s my duty now to add a variety of cleverly hidden fees to all of your accounts.

Don’t have an account with us? Not to worry, I’ve got a friend over at Wells Fargo who knows a workaround for this.