CD Rates, a glimpse at my CD Ladder, and how much I make in interest

April 11, 2020

The rates have really dropped but this is where the market is at.

I was able to open a 1yr online CD at 2.10% at the beginning of this year before the rate fell to 0.85%. See my dash below. Recently, I opened another high-rate product yielding 4.00% on a balance of $3000 (1.00% on balances > $3000). This one is actually a checking and savings account and it comes with a debit card but I don't use it to transact.* I use the account kind of like a CD, a place to park the money. After a year, my business with the bank aka my balance of three grand will earn $120 in interest alone. The accounts in the dash below yield more than that every month.

I am making a couple thousand in interest but I would like these safer investments to come right up to five figures in interest alone each year. It totally depends on the economy and the rates of these products, so that's the thing. This may be my best year! During this year, 2021, 2022, or 2023, when my investments mature, new products might be introduced to the market which are better. I think I'm doing this right, but something tells me there is even more money to be made on interest. In fact, don't get me started..

*In an upcoming post, I am going to write about my credit, how I use it, about which cards I'm currently into, what's serving me. Yes, I have spreadsheets on all of this, and yeah I love it.

Here is a glimpse of my accounts at Citizens Access. You can see the 4yr and the 5yr rates were 3.05% and 3.10% at the time of opening. You can see the date these will be released back into the wild, where it says "maturity date." After that it will be up to me to find other investments. Who knows, maybe I will buy a multi-unit place or condos or something. This is a special time because I will probably never have sleeping, dormant money like this ever again. This may be the only time where I am not working full-time, too, actively contributing to my investments or earning.

Born here is an idea for another post: where am I going to be on 7/30/2022? 10/01/2023? 1/27/2021? What am I going to do with the money? What does the future hold? Where do I want to be? How much can really change?

What will my purchasing power be? Right now, I can tell you it's not going to be very much. More later.. -AUR