New Feature: Split Deposits

MoneyAisle has another great new feature for registered users: Split Deposits

A split deposit involves taking a sum of money and investing it in various CDs (or High-Yield Savings accounts) with the same maturity date, limiting the deposit amount per bank to maintain all deposits under FDIC insurance.

To get started, you provide a total amount you would like to include in your split deposit, and the number of accounts you would like to split this deposit across. When your split deposit is ready to go, click the "Start Auction!" button at the bottom of the page.

You can see for yourself by clicking the "Split Deposits" link on one of our auction pages.

To register for a MoneyAisle account, click here: http://www.moneyaisle.com/Authentication/

CD Rate Auctions Now Available for Georgia, Idaho, Puerto Rico

Big news on the MoneyAisle front, particularly for those of you who live in Idaho, Georgia, and Puerto Rico.

Residents of these locations can now use MoneyAisle's unique reverse auction platform to get great CD rates, a service which was previously unavailable.

Try it out: from the MoneyAisle home page just click on "Bank CD" and follow the instructions from there to run a free test-drive. If you like the CD rate presented at the end of the auction, you can open an account by registering for an account within the timeframe stipulated.

Remember: MoneyAisle is a free service, and every bank in the MoneyAisle network is a member of the FDIC.

Money Market Mutual Funds: Pain That Won't Yield

Great column by Steven Syre in the Boston Globe this week about money market mutual funds.

Pain that won't yield

Start with yields: We are living through what surely feels like the Dust Bowl of short-term investing. The average taxable money fund offered a yield of 0.07 percent last week, according to iMoneyNet of Westborough. The company, which has been tracking money market yields since 1975, never recorded a lower number. You could grow old waiting to earn just 1 percent.

Syre goes on to mention that while yields have dipped to near zero, the safety of money market mutual funds is in question as well after the Reserve Primary Fund "broke the buck" last year.

A suggestion if you're looking for better returns coupled with investment safety - certificates of deposit. While the national average cd rate yield is also fairly low, with MoneyAisle.com's reverse auction platform you can get a much higher rate than the national average. You can see what the overnight MoneyAisle CD Rates are here: MoneyAisle CD Rates. It's free, it's safe, and it's easy to use.

In fact, it's the opposite of Syre's column title: it's not painful, and it will yield.

Savings in the News: August 14

Here are some interesting articles found online in the past few days involving cd rates and savings accounts.

The Northwest Herald has an article about the lingering recession and how it has increased the level of savings among consumers:

Confronted with a dour economic forecast, Americans once again are squirreling away money.

“We’re seeing an in­creased interest in savings,” said Cate Williams, vice president of financial literacy for Money Management International in Chicago, which offers credit counseling services.

CNN Money has an article on the 401k and how Fidelity says workers raising the amount they put into funds last quarter outnumbered those reducing contributions for the first time in a year.

Fidelity said the average 401(k) account balance rose 13.5% in the second quarter to $53,900. The increase was primarily driven by the rally on Wall Street, but higher worker and employer contributions also contributed to the rise, the company said.

"Workers who maintained a long-term point of view are being rewarded with a nice recovery in their account balances," said Scott David, president Fidelity Investments workplace investing division.

Could Interest Rates Be Headed Up?

According to the MonitorBankRates blog, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) are meeting to decide the future direction of interest rates. The decision they make will have an effect on both current mortgage rates and deposits like savings accounts and CD rates.

Once the economy starts expanding again and the unemployment rate goes down considerably from the current rate of 9.4 percent the Fed will raise interest rates to keep a lid on inflation. Tightening monetary policy by raising interest rates probably won’t happen until late 2009 or early 2010.

If you’re thinking about getting a mortgage for a home purchase or refinancing a current mortgage you should act sooner than later. Also, if you are considering opening a certificate of deposit or renewing a certificate that is maturing I would recommend sticking with shorter term certificates of deposits for the foreseeable future.

An Easier Way to Sign Up for Weekly Rates

We've just made it even easier for you to sign up to receive weekly rate emails from MoneyAisle.

Our weekly rate emails alert you to what the best High-Yield Savings account and certificate of deposit rates are in MoneyAisle's reverse auctions, straight to your inbox.

To sign up just go to our CD Rates page (screenshot below) and fill in your email address in the field at the top of the page. We never spam or sell your email address. Weekly rate emails traditionally go out on Wednesday.

CD Rates in the News: August 4

Here are some of the latest stories involving savings, CD Rates, and MoneyAisle around the Web recently:

The Boston Globe featured MoneyAisle in an article about saving and investing:

What’s the best place to stash your savings?

Certificates of deposit. Again, CDs offer a safe insured haven for your money. But in exchange for a better interest rate, you typically have to agree to lock your money up for a period, say six months or a year. On average, one-year CDs are paying just over 1 percent, triple the average for savings accounts and money market accounts.

MoneyAisle.com lets you 'auction' off your business to the bank willing to pay the highest rate.

The Examiner also has an article about the attitude towards saving:

Savings is back in vogue.. who knew?

But wait, there’s more. How about a Vacation Club? And no, I’m not talking Disney. This is an account where you save up a little at a time so when you’re ready to jump on that cruise it’s all paid for.

Well, guess what? In today’s economic times, folks are thinking about using this type of forced savings again rather than relying on credit cards. I love it.