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If you live anywhere near Chicago, you probably know why I'm wearing a poncho. It's been raining non-stop for the last three days. I'm kind of getting sick of this weather! Well, I decided to embrace it right now by wearing a poncho all day. (Maybe not all day)
All this rain also got me thinking about one of the big problems that people have is having too much money in their rainy day fund, their emergency account. When doing a plan, clients will often have too much money in their checking or savings, not earning enough money.
There are a few things that you can do about this to earn more income on your savings.
The first thing you can do is decide that you want three to four months worth of salary in savings. Instead of that money just sitting in your general savings or checking account, which most likely is earning very little, put it into an online savings account that might be earning more like 2 to 2.5 %.
Another option might be just to transfer your rainy day money into your brokerage account and purchase a money market fund there, instead of opening a new account at a different bank. Again, transferring that money into your brokerage and purchasing a money market is going to help you earn more interest than just sitting in your general checking and savings account.
The other thing you could do is you could pay down your mortgage. While it's not income, you're actually saving your interest rate on the mortgage. 2-2.5% is great in a money market. But saving 3.5-5% of mortgage interest is actually a little bit better decision, especially as you get closer to retirement.
Finally with any savings above your “rainy day” fund amount, the last thing to think about is dollar-cost-averaging or investing that money into your long-term portfolio. Cash balances can grow quite a bit because of bonuses, whether they’re paid quarterly or annually. And people may not really think about adding that money into their long-term plan. That would require time and a decision to be made - and many people do not have enough time and are tired of making decisions. By adding those dollars into your long-term plan that money can grow for you for the next, 10, 20, 30 years.
Those are my thoughts during this rainy time. Look at your rainy day fund and see if there's anything else you can do to help earn or save more money. And don’t worry, this rain can’t last forever.