best bank for savings account?

dynacraze · #1 08-17-2007, 12:03 AM

I want to put 5K into a savings account. Which bank would you guys recommend? I live in Nyc. I currently have about 3K in a bank, its a savings bank but PAYS 0.025 percent interest.

Would citibank be good since it is 5 percent? I see igobanking.com has 5.3 percent but i am not really familiar with that name. Amtrust has 5.36 percent but it is a money market and I am not sure the difference between money market and savings.

I would like to put 5K in an account and would not mind not touching the money at all. Would that mean i should go for a CD rather than savings? Is the percent about the same?

Thanks.

dynacraze · #2 08-17-2007, 12:18 AM

does that mean a CD would be better?

irunnotgood · #3 08-17-2007, 12:22 AM

I have an HSBC online account and like it very much. If you travel overseas they have plentiful ATMs.

dynacraze · #4 08-17-2007, 12:36 AM

its 5 percent interest right? I saw that it is 5.05 percent i think online and only if you do it online. If you put 5 grand in there, does that mean in a year, you will make about 250 dollars? Or does it change everyday like if you put 5 grand but withdrew 2 grand in a month and have only 3000 there, you probably make 150 dollars or so for the year?

I do not really understand this.

IdealFugacity · #5 08-17-2007, 12:40 AM

Your interest is calculated every day.

You get something like 4.93% / 365 per day, which comes to a 5.05% yearly value.

IdealFugacity · #6 08-17-2007, 12:41 AM

(This means that if you move money in for a day, you get interest on it for one day, which is usually paid at the end of the month. so yes, moving money around will affect your bottom line, but if you withdraw 100% of your account balance on day 364 you'll still get pretty close to 5.05% on the year)

pig4bill · #7 08-17-2007, 01:17 AM

Have you seen the recent news that some high-yielding money market funds have been using mortgage paper to increase their yield? The kind of mortgage paper that nobody wants to buy any more?

emon87 · #8 08-17-2007, 01:54 AM

No I haven't seen that. But if you do go with a money market fund, pick one from a well known company you have no reason to worry about them going under.

OP: www.bankrate.com

Fishhead24 · #9 08-17-2007, 07:31 AM

I have a Countrywide savings account and it pays me 5.4% ..........love them and highly recommend them.......if they dont go bankcrupt that is. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]