Re:Ask HN: What are your passive income sources?
by rockdiesel on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @05:19PM
(#12800671)
> versus the fraction of the percent you can get from a savings account
Ally savings account is 1%. It's where I keep my emergency fund now. Once I built up my emergency fund I stopped putting money into it, however, but it's nice to see some noticeable interest gains every month vs. the pennies I would see with my Chase savings acct.
Re:Ask HN: What are your passive income sources?
by patrickgordon on Thursday October 27, 2016 @01:24AM
(#12803098)
This may be the case in some countries (US?)
I'm currently getting ~3% on my savings account which is pulling in about $200 AUD a month.
That said, I am in the process of putting some of that in to a index fund (Vanguard).
Re:Ask HN: What are your passive income sources?
by AznHisoka on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @05:47PM
(#12800948)
but they do help you sleep at night. the market can drop 5% in a day and not many people can stomach that emotionally.
Re:Ask HN: What are your passive income sources?
by breischl on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @07:05PM
(#12801549)
One should certainly tailor their investments to their own risk tolerance. But there are better investments even with very low risk levels. Money market, CDs, gov't bonds, and high-grade corporate bonds are all options that give better returns than savings accounts with minimal risk (well, before some gov't bonds were negative rate, anyway).
Savings accounts are a terrible place to put your savings.
If you have anything more than a couple thousand dollars, you can put it in a mutual fund and see several percent return on average, versus the fraction of the percent you can get from a savings account.
In certain situations savings accounts can be advantageous—They are very low-risk and the money is immediately available. But for a long-term investment, almost anything is better than a savings account.