Quicken Discounts Are Back

A quick word from our sponsors at Quicken as they just let us know about a new set of discounts. Just posting it up if it is of interest to anyone as you also get free shipping or you can just download it. Here's a breakdown of the pricing with the offer:

	MSRP	Discount	New Price
Quicken Deluxe	$59.99	$20 savings	$39.99
Quicken Premier	$89.99	$30 savings	$59.99
Quicken Home & Business	$99.99	$30 savings	$69.99
Quicken Rental Property Manager	$149.99	$50 savings	$99.99

Click the appropriate link above to receive the discount on the respective products. And don't forget you can get their Quicken Online for free.

Highest Yielding Savings Accounts: Options For Cash Positions

Every once in a while, we like to dive into the lesser talked about topics of personal finance and we like to examine what the average saver/spender is seeing in terms of options. After all, it can affect many of their decisions going forward. Over the past month or so, we've gotten a lot inquiries about where to put 'cash' since there is still uncertainty out there. Right now, there are a few institutions that are providing meager yields compared to what they used to be. And, obviously that is due to the fact that the Federal Reserve is at 0%. However, you do still have better options than placing your money in a money market fund where you'll earn a paltry 0.40%. We've decided to check out what is out there and present some alternative ideas to at least get something out of all that cash on the sidelines.

All Rates Effective 06/29/2009

Ally Bank: 1.75% Savings Account, 2.00% 1 year CD

By far the highest yielding savings account we've found right now is that of Ally Bank. Their savings accounts are paying out 1.75% APY and their CDs are at 2.00% APY for a 1 year CD. They are FDIC insured, are part of the GMAC parent entity, and the Ally name is an effort to rebrand the business going forward. This could be a cause of concern for some, but we'd also highlight that as long as your account is FDIC insured, you're protected (which Ally is). So, make sure you stay within the FDIC imits ($250,000) and you're good to go. Their savings account and CD yields are the highest out there at the moment (and as far as we can tell have no fees or minimums). So, if you think the Fed won't be juicing up rates over the next 12 months, you can lock in at a 2.00% CD with no monthly fees and daily compounded interest.


WT Direct: 1.76% Savings Account

Upon researching all the options, WT Direct seems to be well known among various personal finance bloggers out there. The yield on their savings account is 1.76%, slightly lower than that of Ally. However, you need to deposit $10,000 or more to get that APY. WT Direct is FDIC insured and is part of Wilmington Trust, who has been around 105 years. This might offer a little more stability for those concerned about Ally's ole GMAC relationship.



HSBC Direct: 1.55% Savings Account
ING Direct: 1.5% Savings, up to 1.63% Checking

Two of the most well-known savings accounts that personal finance savants have sworn by in the past are ING Direct and HSBC Direct (both institutions are FDIC insured.). While they may be 'big time' and mainstream options, their yields have certainly fallen by the wayside. HSBC Direct is yielding 1.55% on their savings while ING Direct is yielding up to 1.63% on their checking accounts (with $100,000 or more deposit) and 1.5% on their savings. The thing with ING is you essentially have to put a lot of money into the account to get a good rate. If you're putting less than $50,000 in, don't bother with them as you'll earn a paltry 0.24%. All of the other institutions mentioned above have no minimums to get the good rate (with WT Direct being the exception at a $10,000 requirement). Another negative regarding ING is you cannot link it to your brokerage account (hat tip to a reader for that info). I guess the HSBC and ING choices would be sacrificing yield for 'peace of mind' as they are bigger institutions? Doesn't seem worth the tradeoff to us, but maybe it is for some.

FNBO Direct: 1.5% Savings Account

Another lesser known option is FNBO Direct. After digging through the personal finance blogosphere, we've found that this bank was also recommended for cash placement. Their savings account is yielding 1.5% currently, so below that of both Ally and WT. FNBO is an affiliate of First National of Nebraska and they are also FDIC insured.


After doing some research, all of the above seem to be some of the most popular savings accounts in personal finance blogger circles. Those of you with overweight cash positions can look at either money market accounts, online savings accounts, or CDs and that's really it if you want to stay within the 'cash' classification. In the end, everything is a bit weak in terms of yield. But, we can thank the Fed for that. If you want to take on a little more risk for much bigger yields, we'd suggest checking out investment grade corporate bonds, high yield bonds, or a combination. That's obviously a topic for another discussion, but it could be worth looking into.

Any other major options we missed? Where does everyone have their cash at these days? Let us know so we can monitor rates going forward. For more info on rates and all that good stuff, bankrate is a good resource for monitoring.


(Database of FDIC Insured banks available here).

$25 Bonus: ING Direct Savings

Sorry to stray off market topics for a post, but a friend just told me about this and I wanted to pass it along. If you are a new client at ING Direct and you are referred by an existing client (me), you can get a $25 bonus for opening an online savings account earning 2.4% interest. So, I figured I would offer my bonus links to my readers.

All you have to do is open with at least $250, and you'll get the $25 bonus deposited into your account. No fees, no catch, no crazy fine print. That's a 10% return in a matter of minutes. And, you can just withdraw it all after 30 days if you want.

The following links are for the $25 bonus. You have to use one of the links below and sign-up with $250 in order to get the bonus. Please note that if you see this message...


...then the particular link you clicked has been used by someone else and you should try a different link.


There are only 20 bonus links. After the links are used, they are gone for good.

Links:

1. Used
   
2. Used
3. $25 Bonus
   
4. $25 Bonus
   
5. Used
6. Used
7. $25 Bonus
   
8. Used
9. $25 Bonus
   
10. Used
11. Used
12. Used
13. Used
14. Used
15. Used
16. Used
17. Used
18. Used
19. Used
20. Used
    

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Some Financial Freebies & Deals

Since we're going into the weekend, just thought I'd post up various freebies and deals I've come across over the past week or two that are finance/market related. Economy sucks right now, so some of these should be beneficial.

• Free Quicken Online - yep, entirely free. (They used to charge $35/yr). Worth checking out for all you savvy personal finance people out there. I wrote about this deal a week or two ago and just wanted to make sure everyone took advantage of it, I know I did.
  
• Free Stock Trades - If you want 10 free trades a month, even for retirement accounts, then check out Zecco. Its great for building core positions over the long-term. If you think about it, 10 trades a month at other brokers would normally cost you $40-70 per month in commissions, so you just saved that money. They recently had no commissions for the entire month of October, which I wrote about here.
  
• Get $100 bonus at ForexClub. Those of you who trade forex or are interested in getting into it, this is a pretty good deal. Just deposit $100 or more into a FXClub account and they give you $100; easy stuff.

Lastly, a few readers have been emailing me wondering what I've been doing with short-term cash in this environment. The crazy market volatility means I've reduced position sizes in the market and have much more cash on hand than I normally would. I've just parked some of that cash safely into FDIC insured online savings accounts. The yields aren't what they used to be (thank you Ben Bernanke), but you can still get some decent rates to park your cash safely in this environment and earn some interest. I've got accounts at both of these places:

• Earn 2.75% APY with ING Direct Online Savings Account. These guys have been around the online savings game for a long time. I've had an account with them forever it seems. Easy interface, no fees, no minimums, and FDIC insurance at ING Direct.
• 3.00% APY with HSBC Direct Online Savings. This is the other online savings account I've got. Slightly higher rate, but I personally like ING's setup a little bit better. The interest difference between the two doesn't add up to a whole lot anyways. But, HSBC Direct is definitely worth a look as they have no fees, no minimums, and FDIC insurance as well.
  

Free Quicken Online

I know this has nothing to do with the markets, but I'm always up for sharing some cool freebies. Just wanted to pass along the fact that Quicken Online is now free. In the past, they were charging something like $35/year. But, now that it's free, I figured I'd check it out since I have heard good things. I guess deep down I'm just lazy and didn't want to fork over the money to use it haha. You can use it as a one-stop-shop for all your finances... brokerage accounts, bank accounts, credit cards, all that good stuff. You can check out Quicken Online for free here.