Where do you park your emergency fund? (1 Viewer)

[ivnabru]

So you're supposed to keep 1/2 year or so (maybe 9 months depending on who you're talking with) of funds liquid for emergencies.

Where do you guys park them? I currently have about 50% of my emergency fund in a low low interest earning savings account connected to my checking account. 25% are in I Bonds that have passed their 1 year date and 25% in I Bonds that aren't liquid right now because I've held them less than a year.

What's a good place to park my cash? I like the I Bonds since they give pretty good interest right now but I don't feel comfortable keeping more than 25% of my fund untouchable so it's another 2 years until I get everything converted there. Plus with inflation dropping right now they could well give me no interest in May.

 

[eoMMan]

I keep it in the thong of Candy.

 

[Fennis]

mattress

 

[ivnabru]

Both places are about as good as where I have mine now.

Candy might be better depending on offdee's ranking.

 

[Joe Summer]

Interest-bearing checking account with my credit union. It's only 2% but it's better than nothing and it's 100% liquid.

 

[BobbyLayne]

here

 

[Sarnoff]

Some in a CD ladder. Don't put it all in one CD. I use ING Direct, which allows me to break it up into small chunks (I think their minimum CD is like $5). So instead of having the whole amount in one fund, I have it in several, which come due in regularly spaced increments. The advantage is that if I only need some, and not all, of the money for an "emergency", there's a smaller penalty for breaking the CD (they penalize based on a % of the total, if I had $12,000 in one CD and needed $1000, I'd pay a bigger penalty than if I just broke 1 $1000 CD/or 2 $500 CDs).

The rest of what I consider my "emergency fund" is in ETFs like TIP (treasury inflation protected) and other securities which take a couple days to a week to get the money out of my brokerage and into my checking account, but offer a little better return. Most of them are in "safe" investments like bonds and such which have more upside than a low interest rate.

 

[bakes]

Interest-bearing checking account with my credit union. It's only 2% but it's better than nothing and it's 100% liquid.

 

[footballnerd]

here

keep dumping into something like this, also open a brokerage account, when you get above your emergency threshold you can pull directly into an ETF or something

 

[NutterButter]

scottrade. i like to be a little more aggressive with my emergency fund, but not 401k aggressive. i stick to stable stocks with solid dividends like verizon; 5.25% dividend yield.

 

[ivnabru]

Interest-bearing checking account with my credit union. It's only 2% but it's better than nothing and it's 100% liquid.

I do like that idea, didn't know they were offering so much interest. My bank offers .25% I think.

 

[NewlyRetired]

Don't have an emergency fund.

 

[Andrew74]

Interest-bearing checking account with my credit union. It's only 2% but it's better than nothing and it's 100% liquid.

Here...my bank's rate is 2.55%.

 

[Fennis]

Interest-bearing checking account with my credit union. It's only 2% but it's better than nothing and it's 100% liquid.

Here...my bank's rate is 2.55%.

what bank?

 

[Major]

AAPL for the next 2 years

 

[Dentist]

So you're supposed to keep 1/2 year or so (maybe 9 months depending on who you're talking with) of funds liquid for emergencies.Where do you guys park them? I currently have about 50% of my emergency fund in a low low interest earning savings account connected to my checking account. 25% are in I Bonds that have passed their 1 year date and 25% in I Bonds that aren't liquid right now because I've held them less than a year.What's a good place to park my cash? I like the I Bonds since they give pretty good interest right now but I don't feel comfortable keeping more than 25% of my fund untouchable so it's another 2 years until I get everything converted there. Plus with inflation dropping right now they could well give me no interest in May.

i started a whole thread about this called: "seeking yield on my money"I have a significant amount in capital one savings account through costco getting 0.82%The rest i am deploying into higher yielding diversified ETFs, munical bond CEFs (what state do you live in?), and now my obsession is with high quality preferred stocks (6-7%)

 

[Dentist]

Interest-bearing checking account with my credit union. It's only 2% but it's better than nothing and it's 100% liquid.

I do like that idea, didn't know they were offering so much interest. My bank offers .25% I think.

that usually comes with stipulations like getting your direct deposit to the credit union and paying bills from that account.in addition often that is only for like the first 10-20KI assume you're talking about a pretty good chunk of money.

 

[The Ref]

50% gold and silver, 50% cash

 

[Jojo the circus boy]

what: gold and silver

where: you'll never know

33.1% gold

33.1% silver

33.8% fiat in personal bank account

and another 100.8% in business bank account (haven't paid taxes on 2012 income yet)

 

[Jojo the circus boy]

50% gold and silver, 50% cash

 

[Dentist]

Don't have an emergency fund.

oh come on. so you have no assets? I'm sure a portion of your portfolio is invested in cash or cash-like investments, that's your emergency fund.

 

[Dentist]

50% gold and silver, 50% cash

silver is a poor man's gold, and why is this a good posting?those metals are volatile as hell, we're talking about an emergency fund, not an investment plan.do i think 5-15% of your portfolio should be gold? sure i'll agree with Cramer on that one, it's a currency that is an inflation hedge.is it a good spot for an emergency fund? i don't think so

 

[rascal]

here

I don't understand the point of this. You can get a better interest rate at any local bank.

 

[Jojo the circus boy]

50% gold and silver, 50% cash

silver is a poor man's gold, and why is this a good posting?those metals are volatile as hell, we're talking about an emergency fund, not an investment plan.

do i think 5-15% of your portfolio should be gold? sure i'll agree with Cramer on that one, it's a currency that is an inflation hedge.

is it a good spot for an emergency fund? i don't think so

Having money in an institution is not safer than having physical precious metals that you can use to barter in an emergency SHTF scenario.Silver is more easily divisible to pay for a loaf of bread in SHTF scenarios than gold.

And without even going to the extreme of SHTF - what if someone gets sewer served and have all of their assets frozen in their bank accounts. This has happened to me, and trust me it is not fun having your "emergency funds" frozen and you not being able to pay rent next month. Since that happened I have opened up multiple bank accounts and now hold physical as a hedge against the unexpected such as that incident.

 

[BobbyLayne]

here

I don't understand the point of this. You can get a better interest rate at any local bank.

Just lazy.It's been in there since 1989.

 

[Dentist]

50% gold and silver, 50% cash

silver is a poor man's gold, and why is this a good posting?those metals are volatile as hell, we're talking about an emergency fund, not an investment plan.

do i think 5-15% of your portfolio should be gold? sure i'll agree with Cramer on that one, it's a currency that is an inflation hedge.

is it a good spot for an emergency fund? i don't think so

Having money in an institution is not safer than having physical metals that you can use to barter in an emergency SHTF scenario.Silver is more easily divisible to pay for a loaf of bread in SHTF scenarios than gold.

i think we're defining emergency differently.

in your scenario, sure.

i think most people think of emergency fund in a different light.... like 2 cars breakdown and you are out of work for 6 months

 

[Mr. Pickles]

Physical ruthenium.

 

[dickey moe]

Wad of $1 bills. Under the balls.

 

[One]

Stock market (Mostly AAPL since '05)

Ally Bank .84% savings account

Golden Eagles

 

[acapella]

Some in a CD ladder. Don't put it all in one CD. I use ING Direct, which allows me to break it up into small chunks (I think their minimum CD is like $5). So instead of having the whole amount in one fund, I have it in several, which come due in regularly spaced increments. The advantage is that if I only need some, and not all, of the money for an "emergency", there's a smaller penalty for breaking the CD (they penalize based on a % of the total, if I had $12,000 in one CD and needed $1000, I'd pay a bigger penalty than if I just broke 1 $1000 CD/or 2 $500 CDs).The rest of what I consider my "emergency fund" is in ETFs like TIP (treasury inflation protected) and other securities which take a couple days to a week to get the money out of my brokerage and into my checking account, but offer a little better return. Most of them are in "safe" investments like bonds and such which have more upside than a low interest rate.

 

[PinkydaPimp]

Bump. Currently have my emergency fund in an ally bank savings. looking for some other options. the I bonds thing sounds interesting.

 

[eoMMan]

In an amberlamps.

 

[Sarnoff]

50% gold and silver, 50% cash

silver is a poor man's gold, and why is this a good posting?those metals are volatile as hell, we're talking about an emergency fund, not an investment plan.

do i think 5-15% of your portfolio should be gold? sure i'll agree with Cramer on that one, it's a currency that is an inflation hedge.

is it a good spot for an emergency fund? i don't think so

Having money in an institution is not safer than having physical precious metals that you can use to barter in an emergency SHTF scenario.Silver is more easily divisible to pay for a loaf of bread in SHTF scenarios than gold.

And without even going to the extreme of SHTF - what if someone gets sewer served and have all of their assets frozen in their bank accounts. This has happened to me, and trust me it is not fun having your "emergency funds" frozen and you not being able to pay rent next month. Since that happened I have opened up multiple bank accounts and now hold physical as a hedge against the unexpected such as that incident.

If physical precious metals are safe, how safe is a non-physical, non-precious bar code stored on some dude's computer in another country?

 

[eoMMan]

50% gold and silver, 50% cash

silver is a poor man's gold, and why is this a good posting?those metals are volatile as hell, we're talking about an emergency fund, not an investment plan.

do i think 5-15% of your portfolio should be gold? sure i'll agree with Cramer on that one, it's a currency that is an inflation hedge.

is it a good spot for an emergency fund? i don't think so

Having money in an institution is not safer than having physical precious metals that you can use to barter in an emergency SHTF scenario.Silver is more easily divisible to pay for a loaf of bread in SHTF scenarios than gold.

And without even going to the extreme of SHTF - what if someone gets sewer served and have all of their assets frozen in their bank accounts. This has happened to me, and trust me it is not fun having your "emergency funds" frozen and you not being able to pay rent next month. Since that happened I have opened up multiple bank accounts and now hold physical as a hedge against the unexpected such as that incident.

If the world got a point where I needed silver coins/bars to get food, I'd much rather have some guns.