How To Earn Over 20x The National Savings Rate

High yield savings accounts are a great way to grow your savings, but most people have their money in accounts with low rates. Unfortunately, that means many of you are losing out on some easy cash! If you’re like most people, you probably don’t even know what interest rate you’re getting on your checking and…

Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Last Updated: November 21, 2022

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclosure for more info.

High yield savings accounts are a great way to grow your savings, but most people have their money in accounts with low APYs. Unfortunately, that means many of you are losing out on some easy cash! #howtosavemoney #moneysavingtips #highyieldsavingsHigh yield savings accounts are a great way to grow your savings, but most people have their money in accounts with low rates. Unfortunately, that means many of you are losing out on some easy cash!

If you’re like most people, you probably don’t even know what interest rate you’re getting on your checking and savings accounts. You were probably told that when you opened your account, but that could have been years ago.

Savings accounts at brick and mortar banks are known for having really low interest rates. For example, here are some of the lowest savings rates I’ve seen:

  • Bank of America’s standard savings rate is 0.03%
  • Wells Fargo Platinum Savings has an APY of 0.05%
  • U.S. Bank has a standard savings rate of 0.01%

Those rates are crazy low, which means your money just isn’t growing as quickly as it could.

This is why I am so excited to share with you Betterment Everyday.

Those banks I listed above often do have accounts with higher APYs, but that’s once you have a high balance, like $25,000+.

Betterment Everyday offers a higher than average APY to all of their customers, even if you are starting with just a penny. That means the average person can start growing their savings at a higher rate, which helps you save even more money.

If you’re looking for a free savings account, as well as a higher than average interest rate on your savings account, look no further!

With Betterment Everyday, you can start earning 0.30% with a balance as low as $0.01

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How does that compare to the national average savings rate? While it’s actually higher than the ones I listed earlier, it’s still a very sad 0.09%. That is a HUGE difference from what Betterment Everyday is offering. If you are only getting 0.09%, then you are losing out on easy, passive money.

For example, if you have a $10,000 savings balance, you could be earning up to $178 a year just by having a high yield savings account with Betterment Everyday. With the national average, you would only earn $9 a year.

Over a 10 year period, that same savings balance with a 1.78% balance would earn you an additional $1,780, whereas a savings account with an interest rate of only 0.09% would earn you a mere $90.

That is a crazy difference, and you can make easy money by shopping around and finding a high yield savings account!

One of the other great things about Betterment Everyday that they don’t charge any fees – there are no monthly fees and no minimum balance.

That’s all great news for the average person who doesn’t have a really high account balance – a high yield savings account like this is really valuable for everyone.

It’s just a great place to save your cash and earn high interest on it, whether that’s your first $500 toward a rainy day fund, your $2,500 tax refund, your savings in general, a down payment for your next house purchase, or money you’re saving for your next vacation. It’s money you’re earning with no risk, and that’s a great feeling!

Click here to check out Betterment Everyday.

 

Now, you may be thinking but this all sounds too good to be true?

If you have been with the same bank for years, you’ve probably gotten really comfortable with them. I know many people who are still at the same bank they started banking with when they were a teenager. And, if you’re like most people, you probably don’t even know what kind of interest rate you have on your savings account.

But, that doesn’t mean that finding an option like Betterment Everyday, who is offering a high yield savings account for even low balances, is too good to be true. It just means you’ve never shopped around to see what other banks are offering.

And, I completely understand that switching may take up a little bit of your time, but compare that to the fact that you are losing a decent amount of money by staying with a low savings rate.

You may be questioning why some big banks (including the one you’ve been at for years) have such low savings rates in comparison. The big reason is that they have no real incentive to raise them – they are hoping that customers, like you, who have been with them for years will just continue to hang around.

This is how those banks get you, and it’s how you end up losing a lot of money over time.

The reason is that most banks also have a lot of overhead. Each branch, teller, and ATM is costing you money. You don’t pay directly to use those things, but you do pay for them in fees and low APYs. Betterment Everyday is an online option, which means they don’t have those costs, and they pass their savings to their customers.

With Betterment Everyday, any cash in Betterment Everyday Cash Reserve Account is covered up to $1,000,000 in FDIC insurance, and any cash in Betterment Everyday Checking Account is covered up to $250,000 in FDIC insurance.

Plus, with a high yield savings account, your money is much more liquid and available to you than other ways that you might find higher rates, like certificates of deposit (CDs).

 

How do I get started with Betterment Everyday?

Glad you asked 🙂

To get started and open a Betterment Everyday account, you will:

  1. Signing up is super easy. Simply click here and sign up.

See, super easy!

What’s the interest rate you receive on your savings and checking accounts? Are you interested in earning more by switching to Betterment Everyday Cash Reserve?

*Betterment Everyday Annual Percentage Yield (APY) is accurate as of December 3, 2019. 


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Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Author: Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Hey! I’m Michelle Schroeder-Gardner and I am the founder of Making Sense of Cents. I’m passionate about all things personal finance, side hustles, making extra money, and online businesses. I have been featured in major publications such as Forbes, CNBC, Time, and Business Insider. Learn more here.

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  1. it’s always interesting to learn how to quietly amassed wealth, especially when it comes to side hustling combined with affiliate marketing and blogging.

  2. I’ve never even heard of VARO before. We switched from a huge, national bank to a local credit union, which was an improvement from 0.01%, fees, AND penalties for going under the minimum, to 0.05%, with no minimum and no fees. I am intrigued by this mobile-only concept though, and will check them out for sure. Thanks for the helpful info, Michelle!

    1. Highly recommend checking out a high yield account 🙂

  3. Hello Michelle,

    This is amazing. Those interest rates are ridiculously low. I can’t deal with that.

    I’d like to know, does VARO have any opportunity available for people living non-US citizens living outside the US?

    I look forward to your response.

    Thanks.

    Emenike

    1. I think they are US only 🙁

  4. Lee

    I’d never heard of VARO until reading this, but I’ll check them out. I switched to Ally years ago after getting sick of being served with fee after fee at a conventional bank I won’t name. Part of my problem is I get paid mostly by wire, and at $25 a pop it was getting expensive. Luckily more and more modern banks are becoming congizant of the average person’s issues with traditional banking.

  5. Wow. This is really good to know about because I have been wanting to teach my kids how to open a savings account and eventually a checking but the low rate and the fees have been making me put it off. I am so happy to have learned about VARO!

  6. I FINALLY switched to a high interest account a year ago after meaning to for far too long. I still have a bit of money in a brick and mortar account (though not much any longer!) and the difference of interest paid out is staggering.

  7. Daniel Joe Gonzales

    Their APY is now down to 0.30 as of April 11, 2021. I’d like to know the reason why it fell from the 1.78% quoted earlier and will it continue to fall until it becomes more like the other banks? It seems like things have changed and I’m interested in finding the highest yield similar to this type of bank for house payment savings.