Update July 2024: Looks like Fidelity is ending this little experiment. They are no longer accepting new applications. It was fun to try out and collect the various incentives.

Update January 2024: If you have the Fidelity Bloom app, this is a reminder that the 10% annual savings match is reset and you can again get $30 for a $300 transfer into your Fidelity Bloom Save account. If you use the SPAXX option for cash sweep, you are also earning close to the equivalent of 5% APY (as of 1/3/24). Here is a screenshot of my 2023 rewards:

Full review:

Fidelity Bloom is a new(er) app from Fidelity Investments targeted at helping young adults become more financially aware and develop better savings habits. iOS and Android. Fidelity has included many “behavioral psychology” features from other fintech startup apps like a match on savings transfers, debit card cash back rewards, rounding-up purchases and saving the difference, and shopping portal cashback. The highlights:

• (No new user bonus at the moment. Was $100.)
• 10% annual savings match (up to $30). Get a 10% match on the first $300 saved into their Bloom Save account (up to a $30 match on $300 of new money deposited).
• 10 cents from Fidelity with every debit card purchase. Fidelity will automatically deposit a fixed 10 cents into the Fidelity Bloom Save account every time customers use the Fidelity Bloom debit card. Reminds me of the Citi Rewards+ credit card.
• Automatically round up purchases into savings. Customers can automatically round up purchases to the nearest dollar and have the difference moved to savings from their Fidelity Bloom Spend to their Fidelity Bloom Save account.
• Up to 25% cashback through shopping portal. Receive up to 25% cash back into your Fidelity Bloom Save account when you shop in-app with 1,100+ participating retailers.

Interest rate is competitive (up to ~5% as of 1/3/24 with SPAXX), but it’s a brokerage account. Is it a bank account? Is it a brokerage account? It’s a SIPC-insured brokerage account:

The Fidelity Bloom App is designed to help with your saving and spending behaviors through your Save and Spend accounts, which are brokerage accounts covered by SIPC insurance. They are not bank accounts and therefore are not covered by FDIC insurance.

You do get a routing number and account number for your two accounts, but the cash is held like their other non-retirement accounts. During the sign-up process, you can pick between one of three options for your core position:

• Fidelity® Interest-Bearing Option (FCASH)
• Fidelity Government Money Market Fund (SPAXX)
• Fidelity Treasury Money Market Fund (FZFXX)

Although I have confidence in Fidelity’s long-term experience and conservatism in running these money market mutual funds, the lack of FDIC coverage is something to note. The rates may change daily. View current rates here.

After you open via app, you can see the account balances at Fidelity.com but you’ll still need the app to change any settings. Here’s a screenshot from my app.

Fidelity recently shut down another of its experimental apps called “Fidelity Spire”, so we’ll see if this one catches on a bit better.

For posterity, here are the terms & conditions for the (expired) $100 limited-time offer:

This offer is valid for new or existing Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC (“Fidelity”) customers who make an initial total deposit of at least $50 (“Qualifying Deposit”) into their Fidelity Bloom Spend account or Fidelity Bloom Save account on or after August 13, 2023 through the Fidelity Bloom app. This offer is limited to one cash award per individual. For clarity, existing Bloom clients who have not yet made any deposits into either of their Fidelity Bloom Spend or Fidelity Bloom Save accounts can participate in this offer by making a Qualifying Deposit by August 27, 2023. Existing Fidelity customers who have previously made deposits into their Fidelity Bloom Spend or Save accounts, including individuals who have already participated in the Bloom $50 offer, are not eligible for this offer.

Mint.com, the financial dashboard and budget tracking website bought by Intuit in 2009, is “shutting down” on January 1st, 2024 (update: now extended to March 2024). Shutting down doesn’t feel like quite the right word, as though the Mint brand is going away, Intuit is transitioning nearly all the core Mint features into Credit Karma, also owned by Intuit.

💰 Credit Karma. Basic balance tracking for free with ads. Direct import from Mint. Known best for their free credit scores and free credit monitoring services, Intuit bought Credit Karma in 2020 (sense a trend?). If you want to continue with tracking account balances, monitor overall spending broken down by category, and be shown ads for credit cards, then you can just migrate all your info to Credit Karma without having to type in all your logins again. Honestly, this seems like a reasonable merger as both used an ad-supported free service model, although the Credit Karma ads are definitely more prominent.

I am already a Credit Karma user for the free credit monitoring, but have not been invited to the formal migration yet. I plan on migrating and giving them a chance first, although I think the current CK website is quite… ugly. The app screenshots look a lot better, so we’ll see. Feature-wise, their FAQ makes it sound pretty similar to what Mint used to offer:

You will be able to bring the majority of your Mint financial account balances, your entire net worth history, plus all of your supported account connections and transactions.

Here are a few more non-Intuit alternatives to Mint to consider:

💰 Quicken Simplifi. Fully featured with automation and forecasting features. No ads for a monthly fee. Quicken has made a more “Mint-like” version called Quicken Simplifi, and the regular price is $3.99/month (discounted 50% to $2/month for first year currently). Deemed “Best Budgeting App” by Wirecutter.

💰 Empower Dashboard. Free financial account tracking more focused on investments and asset allocation. Well, free with one sales phone call. I personally use Empower (formerly Personal Capital) to track all of my investments across different brokerage accounts and 401k providers. Empower also tracks bank accounts, but due to habit I initially preferred to use Mint to track all of my cash across different banks and credit unions. Empower is probably my fallback if Credit Karma gets too annoying, as I’m already familiar with it (and it’s also free with no ads).

I like to tell people upfront that even though it is “free”, after you sign up for Personal Capital, they will call you on the phone to see if you might like their financial planning service. This is how Empower makes money, and I’m fine with that. If you ignore their calls, they will keep calling. If you answer it once and politely decline, they will never call you again (it’s been years and years now) and let you use the dashboard completely free and in peace (and without huge banner ads). I highly suggest the latter option.

💰 Money by Envestnet Yodlee. Free, basic account tracking. No ads. Yodlee was one of the earliest aggregators that allowed you to view all of your balances in one place. Envestnet is a provider of technology for wealth management and financial advisors, and bought Yodlee in 2015. They appear to make most of their money selling this aggregation service to large financial institutions and now financial advisors for wealthy clients, and I can only guess that they offer this “Money” dashboard without ads (or support) as a sort of free beta testing preview for individuals. If you just want to see your various balances in a nice barebones list and don’t need any additional cool features, this may fill all your needs. Note that in my limited experience, Yodlee has more connection issues with certain banks and credit unions than Mint or Plaid, so test it out first.

💰 Monarch Money. Fully-featured budget tracking. No ads. $99 per year regular price. If you wished Mint would have stayed an independent company and continued adding new features and stayed alive by charging money for those features, Monarch Money has the closest feel to that. I haven’t used it myself, but that is certainly my impression after reading through its website, looking at the UI screenshots, and skimming reviews. It uses rollover budgeting like YNAB (You Need A Budget), which is has a very similar feature set and pricing to Monarch Money. It does come in at the highest price here at $15.99/month or $99 a year (discounted to $50 for first year with code MINT50).

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Where will you be going when the Mint.com site shuts down in 2024?

If you’re leaving your cash in a checking account earning zero interest, you’re missing out on a lot of potential interest. Here’s my monthly roundup of the best interest rates on cash as of December 2023, roughly sorted from shortest to longest maturities. There are often lesser-known opportunities available to individual investors. Check out my Ultimate Rate-Chaser Calculator to see how much extra interest you could earn from switching. Rates listed are available to everyone nationwide. Rates checked as of 12/6/2023.

TL;DR: Mostly minor movements. 6% APY now (barely) available with 12-month CD and a new 7% APY rewards checking accounts. More 5%+ savings accounts. Compare against Treasury bills and bonds at every maturity, taking into account state tax exemption.

Fintech accounts
Available only to individual investors, fintech companies often pay higher-than-market rates in order to achieve fast short-term growth (often using venture capital). “Fintech” is usually a software layer on top of a partner bank’s FDIC insurance.

• 5.30% APY ($1 minimum). Raisin lets you switch between different FDIC-insured banks and NCUA-insured credit unions easily without opening a new account every time, and their liquid savings rates currently top out at 5.30% APY amongst multiple banks. See my Raisin review for details. Raisin does not charge depositors a fee for the service.
• 5.36% APY (before fees). MaxMyInterest is another service that allows you to access and switch between different FDIC-insured banks. You can view their current banks and APYs here. As of 12/6/23, the highest rate is from Customers Bank at 5.36% APY. (At the moment, Customers is also the top bank at SaveBetter at 5.30% APY.) However, note that they charge a membership fee of 0.04% per quarter, or 0.16% per year (subject to $20 minimum per quarter, or $80 per year). That means if you have a $10,000 balance, then $80 a year = 0.80% per year. This service is meant for those with larger balances. You are allowed to cancel the service and keep the bank accounts, but then you may lose their specially-negotiated rates and cannot switch between banks anymore.

High-yield savings accounts
Since the huge megabanks STILL pay essentially no interest, everyone should have a separate, no-fee online savings account to piggy-back onto your existing checking account. The interest rates on savings accounts can drop at any time, so I list the top rates as well as competitive rates from banks with a history of competitive rates. Some banks will bait you with a temporary top rate and then lower the rates in the hopes that you are too lazy to leave.

• The top rate at the moment is at Milli (app only) at 5.50% APY. PopularDirect at 5.40% APY. CIT Platinum Savings at 5.05% APY with $5,000+ balance.
• SoFi Bank is now up to 4.60% APY + up to $275 new account bonus with direct deposit. You must maintain a direct deposit of any amount each month for the higher APY. SoFi has historically competitive rates and full banking features. See details at $25 + $250 SoFi Money new account and deposit bonus.
• Here is a limited survey of high-yield savings accounts that aren’t the absolute top rate, but historically have kept it relatively competitive.

Short-term guaranteed rates (1 year and under)
A common question is what to do with a big pile of cash that you’re waiting to deploy shortly (plan to buy a house soon, just sold your house, just sold your business, legal settlement, inheritance). My usual advice is to keep things simple and take your time. If not a savings account, then put it in a flexible short-term CD under the FDIC limits until you have a plan.

• No Penalty CDs offer a fixed interest rate that can never go down, but you can still take out your money (once) without any fees if you want to use it elsewhere. Raisin has a 12-month No Penalty CD at 5.41% APY with $1 minimum deposit. CIT Bank has a 11-month No Penalty CD at 4.90% APY with a $1,000 minimum deposit. Ally Bank has a 11-month No Penalty CD at 4.55% APY for all balance tiers. Marcus has a 13-month No Penalty CD at 4.60% APY with a $500 minimum deposit. Consider opening multiple CDs in smaller increments for more flexibility.
• CIBC Agility Online has a 12-month CD at 5.66% APY. Reasonable 30-day penalty if you withdraw your CD funds before maturity. They are the online division of CIBC Bank. CIBC Agility also has an ongoing savings deposit bonus that can work out to a good APY while maintaining some flexibility.

Money market mutual funds + Ultra-short bond ETFs*
Many brokerage firms that pay out very little interest on their default cash sweep funds (and keep the difference for themselves). * Money market mutual funds are regulated, but ultimately not FDIC-insured, so I would still stick with highly reputable firms. I am including a few ultra-short bond ETFs as they may be your best cash alternative in a brokerage account, but they may experience losses.

• Vanguard Federal Money Market Fund is the default sweep option for Vanguard brokerage accounts, which has an SEC yield of 5.30% (changes daily, but also works out to a compound yield of 5.43%, which is better for comparing against APY). Odds are this is much higher than your own broker’s default cash sweep interest rate.
• The PIMCO Enhanced Short Maturity Active Bond ETF (MINT) has a 5.61% SEC yield and the iShares Short Maturity Bond ETF (NEAR) has a 5.54% SEC yield while holding a portfolio of investment-grade bonds with an average duration of ~6 months.

Treasury Bills and Ultra-short Treasury ETFs
Another option is to buy individual Treasury bills which come in a variety of maturities from 4-weeks to 52-weeks and are fully backed by the US government. You can also invest in ETFs that hold a rotating basket of short-term Treasury Bills for you, while charging a small management fee for doing so. T-bill interest is exempt from state and local income taxes, which can make a significant difference in your effective yield.

• You can build your own T-Bill ladder at TreasuryDirect.gov or via a brokerage account with a bond desk like Vanguard and Fidelity. Here are the current Treasury Bill rates. As of 12/5/23, a new 4-week T-Bill had the equivalent of 5.39% annualized interest and a 52-week T-Bill had the equivalent of 5.06% annualized interest.
• The iShares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETF (SGOV) has a 5.24% SEC yield and effective duration of 0.10 years. SPDR Bloomberg Barclays 1-3 Month T-Bill ETF (BIL) has a 5.26% SEC yield and effective duration of 0.08 years.

US Savings Bonds
Series I Savings Bonds offer rates that are linked to inflation and backed by the US government. You must hold them for at least a year. If you redeem them within 5 years there is a penalty of the last 3 months of interest. The annual purchase limit for electronic I bonds is $10,000 per Social Security Number, available online at TreasuryDirect.gov. You can also buy an additional $5,000 in paper I bonds using your tax refund with IRS Form 8888.

• “I Bonds” bought between November 2023 and April 2024 will earn a 5.27% rate for the first six months. The rate of the subsequent 6-month period will be based on inflation again. More on Savings Bonds here.
• In mid-April 2023, the CPI will be announced and you will have a short period where you will have a very close estimate of the rate for the next 12 months. I will have another post up at that time.

Rewards checking accounts
These unique checking accounts pay above-average interest rates, but with unique risks. You have to jump through certain hoops which usually involve 10+ debit card purchases each cycle, a certain number of ACH/direct deposits, and/or a certain number of logins per month. If you make a mistake (or they judge that you did) you risk earning zero interest for that month. Some folks don’t mind the extra work and attention required, while others would rather not bother. Rates can also drop suddenly, leaving a “bait-and-switch” feeling.

• OnPath Federal Credit Union pays 7.00% APY on up to $10,000 if you make 15 debit card purchases, opt into online statements, and login to online or mobile banking once per statement cycle. Anyone can join this credit union via $5 membership fee to join partner organization.
• Credit Union of New Jersey pays 6.00% APY on up to $25,000 if you make 15 debit card purchases, opt into online statements, and make at least 1 direct deposit, online bill payment, or automatic payment (ACH) per statement cycle. Anyone can join this credit union via $5 membership fee to join partner organization.
• Pelican State Credit Union pays 6.05% APY on up to $10,000 if you make 15 debit card purchases, opt into online statements, log into your account at least once, and make at least 1 direct deposit, online bill payment, or automatic payment (ACH) per statement cycle. Anyone can join this credit union via partner organization membership.
• Orion Federal Credit Union pays 6.00% APY on up to $10,000 if you make electronic deposits of $500+ each month (ACH transfers count) and spend $500+ on your Orion debit or credit card each month. Anyone can join this credit union via $10 membership fee to partner organization membership.
• All America/Redneck Bank pays 5.30% APY on up to $15,000 if you make 10 debit card purchases each monthly cycle with online statements.
• Find a locally-restricted rewards checking account at DepositAccounts.

Certificates of deposit (greater than 1 year)
CDs offer higher rates, but come with an early withdrawal penalty. By finding a bank CD with a reasonable early withdrawal penalty, you can enjoy higher rates but maintain access in a true emergency. Alternatively, consider building a CD ladder of different maturity lengths (ex. 1/2/3/4/5-years) such that you have access to part of the ladder each year, but your blended interest rate is higher than a savings account. When one CD matures, use that money to buy another 5-year CD to keep the ladder going. Some CDs also offer “add-ons” where you can deposit more funds if rates drop.

• Workers Credit Union has a 5-year CD at 5.25% APY. $500 minimum. The early withdrawal penalty is half of the dividends that the withdrawn amount would have earned for the remaining term. Anyone can join this credit union via partner organization.
• Farmer’s Insurance FCU has their 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, or 60 month CDs ALL at 5.00% APY for a limited-time. $1,000 minimum. The early withdrawal penalty for all terms longer than a year is 180 days of dividends OR half of the remaining term’s daily dividends, whichever is greater. Anyone can join this credit union via partner organization.
• BMO Alto has a 5-year CD at 4.90% APY. 4-year at 4.90% APY. 3-year at 5.00% APY. 2-year at 5.25% APY. 1-year at 5.65% APY. No minimum. The early withdrawal penalty (EWP) for CD maturities of 1 year or more is 180 days of interest. For CD maturities of 11 months or less, the EWP is 90 days of interest. Note that they reserve the right to prohibit early withdrawals entirely. Online-only subsidiary of BMO Bank.
• You can buy certificates of deposit via the bond desks of Vanguard and Fidelity. You may need an account to see the rates. These “brokered CDs” offer FDIC insurance and easy laddering, but they don’t come with predictable early withdrawal penalties. Right now, I see a 5-year non-callable CD at 4.45% APY (callable: no, call protection: yes). Be warned that now both Vanguard and Fidelity will list higher rates from callable CDs, which importantly means they can call back your CD if rates drop later.

Longer-term Instruments
I’d use these with caution due to increased interest rate risk, but I still track them to see the rest of the current yield curve.

• Willing to lock up your money for 10 years? You can buy long-term certificates of deposit via the bond desks of Vanguard and Fidelity. These “brokered CDs” offer FDIC insurance, but they don’t come with predictable early withdrawal penalties. You might find something that pays more than your other brokerage cash and Treasury options. Right now, I see a 10-year CDs at 4.25% (callable: no, call protection: yes) vs. 4.15% for a 10-year Treasury. Watch out for higher rates from callable CDs where they can call your CD back if interest rates drop.

All rates were checked as of 12/6/2023.