I check out my local bank accounts every day and record the amount of interest that I have earned.
I was very proud of my one local bank. For a couple of years they have paid 5.25% on a money market account and I made decent interest while we used the money to build spec houses.
Several months ago, the rates dropped to 4.1% but I still kept the money locally.
I was shocked when I went online today to see that the rates had dropped to 3.4%

I called the bank and explained that i had 300K in there, but they would not give me a rate above 3.6% Looks like I will be moving on!!

I opened up a new account at Umbrellabank a few weeks ago with the minimum to earn 5%, which was $1000. Yesterday, I sent an extra $11,000 to the on line bank. I am a little leery of banking with a bank that is online only and so is dh.
I really sure put a large sum of money in there to earn the higher interest rate, but I will probably do it just a little bit at a time for now.
I am worried that I will transfer a lot into the bank, and then they will lower the rate, like ING did.
Does anyone bank with Umbrellabank??

I am opening a new account with umbrella bank today. Their pot o gold money market. I am a little leery of on line banking cause I know so little about a computer. However, they are still paying 5% on deposits, so if I can figure out how to look up my account online to see my balance, then I will send them more money.
They did say they would send me a paper statement for a $5 charge everymonth, but I hate to waste the money.
Has anyone here had dealings with Umbrella bank??

I got my credit card bill in the mail yesterday. I signed up for a chase master card because they give back 3% of what you spend at home improvement stores and 1% on other purchases. My dh spends a lot of money at home depot, since he is a builder.
So, on this, my 2nd billing cycle, I have earned enough points to get a check. You only need 5000 points to get 50 dollars. I already have over 9000 points, so I requested my check and will be able to request another by the time I get the next bill.
Then I did a survey with nfo and that earned me another $10 check.

Ok, the checks are in the mail!!!

I have a lot of cash sitting in a local bank. However, they have lowered their rate from 5.25% to 4.16% That is a pretty big difference. so, I have been thinking about putting some money in one of those online banks that are still paying 5%.
I did open a small account at ING, but they are not paying great.
Do any of you have any advice about a good online banking service that you like? Remember, the account has to be preety simple for me to open.

About the power of compound interest!! I once attended a financial seminar. The question was posed like this. "Lisa saved $2000 a year from age 20 to 30 and then stopped. Susan, however started at age 30 and saved $2000 a year from age 30 to age 65. They both earned the same percentage of interest. Who had the most money at age 65?" Every woman in the group said that Susan had the most money cause she had saved for 35 years.

I was the only woman that knew that Lisa had the most money cause Lisa started saving 10 years earlier than Susan.

Be smart, start saving your money when you are very young!! I started working at age 12, but I used my money to buy clothes, school supplies, candy, etc. I wish I had saved some of that money when I was a young teen.

Start early!! Save early!!

Darn, the fed lowered the interest rate again and my bank has already lowered theirs too.
Because my dh is a builder, I keep a large amount of liquid cash in local banks. I was getting a decent 5.25% return on my money without any risk. The rate has gone down 3 times in the past few months, and now the rate is down to 4.16%.

Now, we certainly don't live on the interest, but it sure would be nice to, someday.
However, even with this terrible slow down, if nothing comes along for him to build, he is going to build a spec house to keep himself busy! So the cash has to stay liquid!!
I figure that this rate cut is going to cost me $5,450 in interest next year and that is if they don't lower the rate any more!!

I just figured out my interest for the month and it was $2204.56. Not as good as late month, but rates went down in several accounts and I made a big withdrawal. Now, If I could just live on $2000 a month, that would be really good!!

I know how to keep up with my savings, checking and cd's using the computer to look them up everyday.
What I had not bothered with (much) was using the computer to see how my mutual funds are doing.
Just for the heck of it (cause my dh is at a local car show), I decided to look up my mutual funds with American Century.
My Heritage fund has had a 53.24% gain in the past 12 months!!
Wow, I am shocked!!
That was the very first fund I ever opened back on 7-11-88. I opened it with $2000 but back then, they would accept any amount.
I put a grand total of $6500 in it, with $50 or $100 dollars going in as often as i could save it out of my tips. The fund is now worth over $48,000 now.

Start young and save what you can. It will pay off down the road.

I finally got around to computing the interest that I earned for the month of Augusut on savings. It came to $2352.80, my best month so far. I know I should have more money in the stock market and less in cash savings, but that interest looks so nice!

I like that site, networthiq.com. I now track my net worth on the first day of the month. (sometimes the 2nd)
My net worth is up over $12,000 for the month. some of that had to do with my stocks and mutual funds being higher and some of it is just addding to savings and the interest also.
I have been so lucky so far this year (knock on wood) beause I have not had to make one withdrawal due to an emergency. I mean, we did have to pay out to get the van fixed, but I managed to save up the money in advance. Anyway, it was a good month.

I got the interest added to my largest money market account yesterday. That makes my balance go up by $975.20. So far this year (knock on wood) I have not had to withdraw anything for emergencies.
The van seems to be running fine right now and I had expected a big bill on that repair. (It still may happen) My husband went to the dentist this week and it was "no charge"
Everything seems to be going great except waiting on permits to start a new house. We applied 8 days ago and they usually come out and check out the property in 2 days.

I do not add the interest that I receive each month to my $20 challenge, but I am keeping track of it cause my goal is to earn $20,000 in interest this year.

Baselle took mine, pay your self first every payday. I have done that all my life.
I have saved a lot of money by keeping my electic bill low and saving the rest of what I had budgeted for it. I do this by keeping the heat down and the hot water heater turned low.(usually off)
I also have saved a lot of money by coloring my hair myself the past 35 years.

It has been one of my goals this year to earn $20,000 in interest this year. Yesterday ( I just added it up today), I hit the $15,000 mark ($15,059) in interest, on ELVIS day of all things.
Unless I have some really big expenses or start a new spec house, I should hit the $20,000 mark this year, with no problem.

Most people think saving money is depriving them of "things" that will make them happy.
Actually, saving money does make me happpy. I think it is a lot of fun to watch that interest add up!!
Today I logged on to check on a new money market savings account that I just opened a month ago. I just earned $488.78 in interest this past month.

Now who doesn't think that is fun???

Building of new homes is certainly slowing down around here. You use to have to get on a wait list for getting a basement poured, now they are out there in a few days.
We talked to the engineer at the power company and he says very few houses are getting started.
We talked to the guy in charge of the building dept. and no one is pulling permits to build spec houses right now.

There are over 700 homes sitting on the market in this county, and we only have a population of about 19,000. We have so many friends who are sitting on and paying interest every month on their spec house.

We have been so fortunate. We have decided to take a break from building spec houses until things pick back up. We are starting two homes for customers that will take over a year to build, plus we are talking to another couple on Synday. If they can wait a year, we will take on their house too.
So, we should be fine.
In the meantime the cash we have accumulated to build the next house will be sitting in the bank earning 5.25% interest.

I did our net worth this afternoon. I usually like to do it on the first day of the month, but I was a little late today. I had to take my beautiful puppy to the groomer's.
Anyway, I was kind of dreading it because the stock market has been down so much the past several days.
Sure enough, most of my stocks and all but one of my mutual funds were down.
However, I had done some good saving last month, plus earned decent interest on my cash holdings. The fact that my 6 month certificate deposit paid me $2796.00 helped too.
So my net worth actually went up over $3000 last month and I am pleased!

I just totaled the interest that I received for the month. It was $1957.88. That is last than last month; however, I transferred 100K into a new account so that I would be insured for everything in the bank. I transferred the money on July 3rd, and after 3 days, they paid interest on the money. So that is why my total interest in almost $300 less than last month. I have about 24 days of interest unaccounted for which will be paid around the 6th of this month.

I see that many of you read money magazine and scfr mentions the chart on page 109. I did not quite understand how to figure that chart out. Maybe one of you smart people can tell me how much we should be saving according to that chart.
My husband is near 55, makes close to ( but less) than 80K and we have about 800K in savings. How much should we be saving per year?

Money magazine has a page about key benchmarks to check your progress. It is on page 113.
According to the magazine an upper middle class earner, in my age group, earning $70,000 a year has $112,792 in retirement saving.
That is not a good thing. I am certainly glad I have more than that put away.
BTW, there is a pull out in the magazine for ING.. It is the $25 invitation. (free money) I have offered it on my local forum. I bet I get NO takers!

I got an offer for one of those balance transfer things. The deal is no interest til Oct. 2008 and there is no fee.
I wrote myself out a check for $5000 and put it in my savings account that pays 5.25% interest.
I hope I am not making a mistake. I know some of you guys have done this and made money. My dh is not too sure of this, so we will see. If it workes, I will make close to $298 in interest.
If not, I will pay it off right away. I will keep you posted.

I hit my goal yesterday. I had closed a small savings on Saturday and yesterday I closed a small savings which was paying very little. I saved $400 out of my husband's paycheck and with the two checks, I made a deposit in my money market account, hitting my goal of a half million! I am now watching the "millionaire inside" on CNBC right now. I kind of have mixed feelings because the four speakers all have different tactics to use to become a millionaire.
I think I will say, I have used David Bach's approach the most, pay yourself first.

Thanks to Disneysteve, I went to my bank to get a money order. (to pay for something I got on ebay) I never knew they were free at the bank. You can get 3 of them per month, for free. I don't use them often, but I always "buy" them at the post office.
So, thanks, Steve! I saved some money.

I added up all the interest that I earned on my different accounts this past month. I have a money market account, 2 C.D.'s, an ING account, a business checking (that pays interest) and another small money market account. All it total, the accounts earned me $2242.92 in interest!(for the month of June)

I generally figure out my net worth the first day of every month. This month, it was up about $2500. Actually, my mutual funds went down. It was only because I had a real good saving month that my net worth increased. I used to have all most all of my savings in mutual funds and in stocks. Over the past five years, since we have been building spec houses, I have had to increase our cash savings. It is kind of fun to see that interest added in each month. All in all, June was not a bad month.

Today,I hit the $10,000 mark in interest. One of my goals for the year was to earn $20,000 in interest.
Now, it looks like that would be easy, but only if I don't take any money out of my savings and c.d.'s.
Because we build houses and sell them, it seemed impossible not to touch that money for a whole year.
We have been on the look out to buy property to start a next house to sell. However two houses just kind of fell in our laps these past two months.Both couples want us to build and pick every thing out! We love that!!
So, I might make that goal after all!

I just figured out my net worth for the month. It went up over $21,000. $12,000 of that was due to the stock market. My mutual funds were all up pretty good. All in alli May was a pretty good month for us financially.

I just added up the interest that I earned on savings, checking, money market and certificate of deposit. My grand total for the month is $2,394.30 in interest. Pretty nice!!

I noticed that everyone was doing their net worth today, so i did mine too. The first of the month is an ideal time to do that.
My net worth increased $26,317.00 this past month. Most of it was due to the stock market, all of my mutual funds went up in value.
Plus i was able to increase my local savings account about $8000 due to my deposits and interest.
It has been a very nice day today!

I just got back from the biggest bank in our town. It has been in business for well over 50 years here.
I have kept my cash in two other local banks because they pay more interest. This bank's president stopped by our table one night and I told him that was why I have no money in his bank. He promised to give me a rate of 5.45 on a jumbo C.D.
Well, I stopped by today and he was not there. The best the staff could offer me was 5.0%
Heck I am getting 5.25% with my money market account at one bank and 5.75% with a C.D. at the other bank.
The biggest bank makes all the loans in town, why don't they pay out the highest rates?
I need to find somewhere else to put this cash, cause I am way over the fdic insured amount. I really don't like banking on line.