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Comment by ra7 | Hacker News Reader

The $10k limit makes I-Bonds mostly suitable for parking emergency funds. If you’re saving up more money (for buying a house etc), a savings account is still the best bet. I’m in this position and the interest rates are frustrating, but everything else is very risky IMO.

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> If you’re saving up more money (for buying a house etc), a savings account is still the best bet

Open a TreasuryDirect account and buy bills, currently yielding about 50 bps for 4 weeks [1]. Or search out a high-yield online (FDIC insured) savings account, presently paying up to 80 bps [2].

[1] https://www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/annceresult/annceresul...

[2] https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/best-high-yield-int...

Thanks for the recommendation! I’ve never bought bills, I will check it out. I use Marcus savings which just increased its rate from 50 bps to 60 bps yesterday.

(PS: I always search for your comments in any finance-related threads as I learn a lot from them. Just an appreciation!)

You can buy CDs from a Vanguard brokerage account that are yielding about 50% more than the equivalent durations offered at gsbank/Marcus: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/FixedIncomeHome

Brokerage CDs are a pain if you need your money back early. Unlike a normal CD, which you can redeem early for a penalty, you can only sell brokerage CDs on a secondary market. They trade at huge discounts, and you have to pay fees to involve a broker because they are not liquid enough to trade yourself. At least this is how it was when I tried to do this a few years back.

Thanks!

It sounds like I-Bonds are not meant to subsidize the poor instead of the rich which is a nice change for once.

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