Safe Place To Save Your Money

By: Marilyn Katz
The stock market has lost trillions of dollars, and a lot of that lost value was in people's retirement accounts. It can be really tough to find a safe place to save or invest these days. While this article is not intended to provide any sort of investment advice, it is meant to help people stash some cash in a place that will be safe.

For most Americans, banks are are a good choice. Looking at banks may not be very exciting, but after the wild ride that the stock market has taken in the last few months, we are due for a little boredom. And savings are FDIC insured, so even if you own individual bank has problems, people with deposits can sleep well at night.

However, traditional bank savings accounts and CDs may still have pretty low rates. It is depressing to think of saving money, and then actually losing money because the interest rate is lower than inflation! But new online accounts can offer higher interest rates, and still give consumers all of the services they are used to. You can still write checks, make deposits at cash machines, and even use a debit card with many online accounts. You can find online accounts that are FDIC insured too, so your money is just as safe there as it would be at a neighborhood bank.

How can online banks offer higher rates than neighborhood banks? Well, they use computer and internet technology to cut costs. You can check your bank balance online, make deposits through check, online transfers, or even at cash machines. You can login to check your balance, withdraw money with a cash card or through an online transfer, and even pay your bills all through your home or work pc.

What this means is, the online account does not have to pay the overhead of a local branch bank, which includes a building and salaries. So they can offer their customers a higher return on their money by passing the savings on.

You can find online savings accounts, CDs, and checking accounts. Some include the ability to pay bills online which is convenient, and also saves you from having to go out and buy postage stamps! Some others can be attached to an online brokerage account which makes it easy to act quickly on a hot tip or change in the values of your other investments.

Online bank accounts are not for everybody. But if you are comfortable using the internet they are very simple to use.