Best Interest Rates Survey: Savings Accounts, Treasuries, CDs, ETFs – April 2025

Posted on April 20, 2025 // 1 Comment
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Here’s my monthly survey of the best interest rates on cash as of April, roughly sorted from shortest to longest maturities. Banks love taking advantage of our idle cash, and you can often earning more money while keeping the same level of safety by moving to another FDIC-insured bank or NCUA-insured credit union. 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 4/20/2024.

TL;DR: Short-term savings accounts dropped again slightly overall. Short-term T-Bill rates at around 4.3%. Top 5-year CD rates are ~4.25% APY, while 5-year Treasury rate is ~4%.

High-yield savings accounts*
Since the huge megabanks still pay essentially no interest, everyone should at least 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 and solid user experience. 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 saving rate at the moment: Roger.bank is at 4.65% APY (no min), but does require an additional companion checking account. OnPath FCU has a new account paying 5.00% APY but requires $25,000 min. CIT Platinum Savings is now at 4.10% APY with $5,000+ balance, but also has a $225/$300 deposit bonus you can stack on top. There are many banks in between.
  • SoFi Bank is at 3.80% APY + up to $325 new account bonus with direct deposit. You must maintain a direct deposit of any amount (even $1) each month for the higher APY. SoFi has historically competitive rates and full banking features. See details at $25 + $300 SoFi Money new account and deposit bonus.
  • Here is a limited survey of high-yield savings accounts. They aren’t the top rates, but a group that have historically kept it relatively competitive such that I like to track their history.

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. Marcus has a 13mo No Penalty CD at 4.00% APY ($500 minimum deposit). Farmer’s Insurance FCU has 9-month No Penalty CD at 4.25% APY ($1,000 minimum deposit). Kinecta FCU has 9-month Liquid CD at 4.25% APY ($10,000 minimum) that allows for daily penalty-free withdrawals of up to 50% of the start of day balance. Consider opening multiple CDs in smaller increments for more flexibility.
  • Security State Bank has a 12-month certificate special at 4.65% APY ($25,000 min). Early withdrawal penalty is 180 days of interest.

Money market mutual funds
Many brokerage firms that pay out very little interest on their default cash sweep funds (and keep the difference for themselves). Note: Money market mutual funds are highly-regulated, but ultimately not FDIC-insured, so I would still stick with highly reputable firms.

  • Vanguard Federal Money Market Fund (VMFXX) is the default sweep option for Vanguard brokerage accounts, which has an SEC yield of 4.22% (changes daily, but also works out to a compound yield of 4.30%, which is better for comparing against APY). Odds are this is much higher than your own broker’s default cash sweep interest rate.
  • Vanguard Treasury Money Market Fund (VUSXX) is an alternative money market fund which you must manually purchase, but the interest will be mostly (100% for 2024 tax year) exempt from state and local income taxes because it comes from qualifying US government obligations. Current SEC yield of 4.23% (compound yield of 4.31%).

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 4/17/25, a new 4-week T-Bill had the equivalent of 4.32% annualized interest and a 52-week T-Bill had the equivalent of 3.99% annualized interest.
  • The iShares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETF (SGOV) has a 4.18% SEC yield (0.09% expense ratio) and effective duration of 0.09 years. SPDR Bloomberg Barclays 1-3 Month T-Bill ETF (BIL) has a 4.13% SEC yield (0.136% expense ratio) and effective duration of 0.15 years. The Vanguard 0-3 Month Treasury Bill ETF (VBIL) hasn’t been around long enough to generate an SEC yield (0.07% expense ratio).

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.

  • “I Bonds” bought between November 2024 and April 2025 will earn a 3.11% 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 2025, 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. Read all the details about your options here.

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 (my review) 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. You can also get a $100 Visa Reward card when you open a new account and make qualifying transactions.
  • Genisys Credit Union pays 6.75% APY on up to $7,500 if you make 10 debit card purchases of $5+ each per statement cycle, and opt into online statements. Anyone can join this credit union via $5 membership fee to join partner organization.
  • La Capitol Federal Credit Union pays 5.75% APY on up to $10,000 if you make 15 debit card purchases of at least $5 each per statement cycle. Anyone can join this credit union via partner organization, Louisiana Association for Personal Financial Achievement ($20).
  • First Southern Bank pays 5.50% APY on up to $25,000 if you make at least 15 debit card purchases, 1 ACH credit or payment transaction, and enroll in online statements.
  • Credit Union of New Jersey pays 6.00% APY on up to $25,000 if you make 12 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.
  • Andrews Federal Credit Union pays 5.50% APY (down from 6%) on up to $25,000 if you make 15 debit card purchases, opt into online statements, and make at least 1 direct deposit or ACH transaction per statement cycle. Anyone can join this credit union via partner organization.
  • 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.

  • KS State Bank has a 5-year certificate at 4.15% APY ($500 minimum), 4-year at 4.15% APY, 3-year at 4.15% APY, 2-year at 4.20% APY, and 1-year at 4.25% APY. $500 minimum. The early withdrawal penalty (EWP) for the 5-year is a huge 540 days of interest.
  • Mountain America Credit Union (MACU) has a 5-year certificate at 4.25% APY ($500 minimum), 4-year at 4.25% APY, 3-year at 4.25% APY, 2-year at 3.95% APY, and 1-year at 4.25% APY. Early withdrawal penalty for the 4-year and 5-year is 365 days of interest. Anyone can join this credit union via partner organization American Consumer Council for a one-time $5 fee (or try promo code “consumer”).
  • Lafayette Federal Credit Union (LFCU) has a 5/4/3/2/1-year certificates at 4.28% APY ($500 min). Slightly higher rates with jumbo $100,000+ balances. Note that the early withdrawal penalty for the 5-year is a relatively large 600 days of interest. Anyone nationwide can join LFCU by joining the Home Ownership Financial Literacy Council (HOFLC) for a one-time $10 fee.
  • 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 brokered CD at 4.00% APY (callable: no, call protection: yes). Be warned that both Vanguard and Fidelity will list higher rates from callable CDs, which importantly means they can call back your CD if rates drop later. (Issuers have indeed started calling some of their old 5%+ CDs during 2024.)

Longer-term Instruments
I’d use these with caution due to increased interest rate risk (tbh, I don’t use them at all), 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 [n/a] (non-callable) vs. 4.34% 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 4/20/25.

* I no longer recommend fintech companies due to the possibility of loss due to poor recordkeeping and lack of government regulation. (Ex. Evergreen Wealth at 5% APY is a fintech.)

Photo by insung yoon on Unsplash

Filed Under: Banking, Deals & Offers, Investing // Tagged:
Last updated: April 20, 2025
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

Savings I Bonds May 2025 Predictions: ~2.86% Inflation Rate, ~4% Total Rate

Posted on April 11, 2025 // 6 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Savings I Bonds are a unique, low-risk investment backed by the US Treasury that pay out a variable interest rate linked to inflation. With a holding period from 12 months to 30 years, you could own them as an alternative to bank certificates of deposit (they are liquid after 12 months) or bonds in your portfolio.

New inflation numbers were just announced at BLS.gov, which allows us to make an early prediction of the May 2025 savings bond rates a couple of weeks before the official announcement on the 1st. This also allows the opportunity to know exactly what an April 2025 savings bond purchase will yield over the next 12 months, instead of just 6 months. You can then compare this against a May 2025 purchase.

New inflation rate prediction. September 2024 CPI-U was 315.301. May 2025 CPI-U was 319.799, for a semi-annual inflation rate of 1.43%. Using the official composite rate formula:

Composite rate formula: [Fixed rate + (2 x semiannual inflation rate) + (fixed rate x semiannual inflation rate)]

This results in the variable component of interest rate for the next 6 month cycle being ~2.86 to 2.88%, depending on the fixed rate.

Tips on purchase and redemption. You can’t redeem until after 12 months of ownership, and any redemptions within 5 years incur an interest penalty of the last 3 months of interest. A simple “trick” with I-Bonds is that if you buy at the end of the month, you’ll still get all the interest for the entire month – same as if you bought it in the beginning of the month. It’s best to give yourself a few business days of buffer time. If you miss the cutoff, your effective purchase date will be bumped into the next month. (You should always sell at the very beginning of the month.)

Buying in April 2025. If you buy before the end of April, the fixed rate portion of I-Bonds will be 1.20%. You will be guaranteed a total interest rate of 1.20 + 1.91 = 3.11% for the next 6 months. For the 6 months after that, the total rate will be 1.20 + 2.88 = 4.08%.

Buying in May 2025. If you buy in May 2025, you will get ~2.88% plus a newly-set fixed rate for the first 6 months. The new fixed rate is officially unknown, but is loosely linked to the real yield of short-term TIPS with some reductions. In the previous 10 days, 5-year TIPS real rates have ranged from 1.25% to 1.72%. That’s a nearly 50 basis point swing! If I had to guess, I’d put a new fixed rate somewhere between 1.0 to 1.3%, for a total rate of about 4%. Every six months after your purchase, your rate will adjust to your fixed rate (set at purchase) plus a variable rate based on inflation.

If you have an existing I-Bond, the rates reset every 6 months depending on your specific purchase month. Everyone will eventually get this variable rate. Your bond rate = your specific fixed rate (based on purchase month, look it up here) + variable rate (total bond rate has a minimum floor of 0%).

Buy now or wait? Between those two options, I’m actually not sure. In the short-term, the rates are no better than T-bills. If you are a long-term holder, you might grab the 1.2% fixed rate “bird in the hand”. But the inflation rate will be higher in May by nearly a whole 1%, and so I’d personally just wait and see what happens in mid-October to buy my limit.

Also consider that 30-year TIPS rates on 4/10/25 were at 2.68%! If you really intend to hold for 30 years, that might be a better deal. I plan to fill out my TIPS ladder a bit more if the rates stay this high.

Unique features and considerations. I have a separate post on reasons to own Series I Savings Bonds, including inflation protection, tax deferral, exemption from state income taxes, and potential tax benefits if used toward qualified educational expenses.

The main drawback is hassle. You can only buy new savings bonds through TreasuryDirect.gov, which is limited in its customer service resources and features. But as there is no option for paper tax forms nor statements, so your heirs may never know they exist! If they do find it, it may take them several months to close out all the estate paperwork. If your password is compromised, they will not replace any lost or stolen savings bonds. The juice may not be worth the squeeze when you can own individual Treasury bonds or TIPS within any full-service brokerage account.

Annual purchase limits. The annual purchase limit is now $10,000 in online I-bonds per Social Security Number. For a couple, that’s $20,000 per year. As of 2024. you can only buy online at TreasuryDirect.gov, after making sure you’re okay with their security protocols and user-friendliness. (No more tax refund savings bonds.) Technically, the purchase limits are per Social Security Number or Employer Identification Number. For those looking for another way to expand their purchasing power, that means you can also buy for a child, grandchild, LLC, or a trust.

Bottom line. Savings I bonds are a unique, low-risk investment that are linked to inflation and only available to individual investors. You can now only purchase them online at TreasuryDirect.gov. For more background, see the rest of my posts on savings bonds.

[Image: 1942 US Savings Bond poster – source]

Filed Under: Banking, Investing, Retirement, Savings Bonds //
Last updated: April 11, 2025
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

Profile of Greg Abel, Next CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

Posted on April 9, 2025 // Leave a Comment
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

In times of volatility, I often re-read the teachings of Warren Buffett. Although Buffett is becoming much less active at age 94 and no longer making speeches or giving lots of CNBC interviews, if you follow Berkshire Hathaway, don’t miss this in-depth Fortune magazine profile of Greg Abel, who is set to be the eventual next CEO. After reading it, it’s easy to understand why Buffett picked him to be his successor. Highly-intelligent but humble, extremely self-motivated but with good people-skills, working-class background, entrepreneurial since childhood, the list goes on. Here’s an excerpt:

It would surprise almost no one to learn that the man Buffett anointed to succeed him boasts a folksy, super-likable personality; those who know Abel say he has a touch of Warren, minus the showmanship his boss is famous for. Abel grew up in Edmonton, the Canadian prairie town nicknamed the nation’s “oil capital” and famed for its boom-to-bust cycles. His mother was a homemaker who doubled at times as a legal assistant, and his father sold fire extinguishers. “Sometimes people had jobs, and sometimes they didn’t,” Abel recalled in an interview for the Horatio Alger Association, a group that provides scholarships for severely underprivileged students, of which he’s been a strong supporter. “But with your family and good friends you had the opportunity to dream.”

His first business venture consisted of distributing advertising fliers to homes while pedaling his bike around town, earning the rate of a quarter of a penny per delivery. Young Greg—a photo shows him sporting a shaggy Beatles-style hairdo—advanced to collecting discarded pop bottles. He’d keep finding better and better bike routes home from school for spotting the throwaways. He’d grab as many as five per trip, and by the weekend fill his room with 20, worth $1. In high school, he labored filling fire extinguishers for his dad’s employer.

Also included was a cool infographic about all the companies owned partially and outright by BRK (even if the creator did mispell “Berkshire”). Not everyone knows they own Duracell batteries, Brooks running shoes, Forest River RVs, and Benjamin Moore paints.

I’ve picked up shares of Berkshire Hathaway in bits and pieces over the years. If a brokerage bonus gave me a choice, it was always BRKB shares for me. I set aside a certain slice of my cashflow for my self-directed portfolio, and if nothing else looked good but BRK was buying back its own shares, I’d buy BRKB too. Over time, it’s grown to a significant size, enough to wonder if I should keep it given the fact that Buffett won’t be around forever. However, it seems like Buffett has done his best to find someone to “keep the culture” and I expect to hold on for the foreseeable future. I wonder if Greg Abel will open up more to the public as time goes on.

Filed Under: Investing //
Last updated: April 9, 2025
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

How to Avoid Comparing Against Your All-Time High Portfolio Value

Posted on April 6, 2025 // 2 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

A common question about of the “4% rule” is, well, 4% of what? People like to anchor themselves to the all-time high value of their portfolio, but we can see from recent events that can be a shaky idea. I believe that you should always be prepared for stocks to fall by 50%, which means you could be taking 4% of two very different values. Folks shouldn’t act like they “lost $XX,XXX” when their stocks drop from an arbitrary all-time high, and they shouldn’t plan out the next 30 years of retirement income based on a single value either.

I’m currently reading the new book Rethinking Investing: A Very Short Guide to Very Long-Term Investing by Charles Ellis. He’s been in the industry a long time, but may be best known for his bestselling book Winning the Loser’s Game, first published in 1985.

In the book, Ellis proposed a potentially better way to set your Spending Rule in retirement. It’s not based on the most recent value of your portfolio, and definitely not the all-time high of your portfolio. Instead, he wants you to use the rolling average over the last 5-7 years. Then, you can add the 4% rule (or whatever).

In designing your own spending rule, first, average the year-end values of your assets over the prior several years (preferably more than five years) to dampen the impact of market fluctuations. Next, calculate what would be a prudent withdrawal of the averaged assets—likely 4–5%—to determine what dollar amount you can prudently withdraw from your current portfolio each year to cover some of your expenses.

This has the effect of smoothing out your annual withdrawals:

Averaging your assets over multiple years makes the funds available for your spending far more consistent and predictable. If, for example, you settle on a 5% rate of withdrawal and a six-year moving average of the year-end value of your assets, a 30% drop in the stock market would lead to only a 5% reduction in your payout that year (and much of that reduction likely would be provided by your consistent dividend income).

(Side note: This supports the idea of me tracking my consistent dividend income…)

Let’s take a look at Vanguard LifeStrategy Growth Fund (VASGX), an all-in-one fund that is diversified similarly to their Target Date Retirement Funds, but a handy benchmark since it is a constant 80% stocks/20% bonds. Here’s a Growth of $10,000 chart for the last 5 years ending 4/4:

Instead of seeing that you are about 11% off your all-time high value of about $18,300, you might appreciate that you are still above January 2024 levels, and that your 5-year rolling average of year-end values is about $15,400. If you based your 4% withdrawal rate on that value, you would be much calmer now.

I like this strategy, and I believe it should be applied even when you are still accumulating for retirement. Don’t anchor yourself the all-time high of your portfolio and make it your new “If it ever goes below this, I’ll be sad!” value. Instead, mentally track a rolling average of your net worth. I’ll look to add this concept to my portfolio updates, hopefully it’ll reduce my stress levels during volatile times.

Finally, Ellis points out another potential benefit:

Importantly, by following such a Spending Rule, you are then free to concentrate on achieving significantly higher long-term returns without the need to be overinvested in bonds. Stabilizing the investor’s income with a responsible Spending Rule frees the investment portfolio to invest more in equities and produces, over time, a higher and more rapidly rising portfolio value and income stream.

Filed Under: Investing, Retirement //
Last updated: April 6, 2025
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

MMB Portfolio Dividend & Interest Income – 2025 Q1 Update

Posted on April 1, 2025 // Leave a Comment
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Here’s my 2025 Q1 income update as a companion post to my 2025 Q1 asset allocation & performance update. Even though I don’t focus on high-dividend stocks, income-focused ETFs or high-yield bonds – I still track the income from my portfolio as an alternative metric to performance. The total income goes up much more gradually and consistently than the number shown on brokerage statements (market price), which helps encourage consistent investing. Here’s a related quote from Jack Bogle (source):

The true investor will do better if he forgets about the stock market and pays attention to his dividend returns and to the operating results of his companies. – Jack Bogle

Here is the historical growth of the S&P 500 total dividend, which tracks roughly the largest 500 stocks in the US, updated after 2024 Q4 (via Yardeni Research):

Why I like tracking dividends in general. Stock dividends are a portion of profits that businesses have decided to distribute directly to shareholders, as opposed to reinvesting into their business, paying back debt, or buying back shares. They have explicitly decided that they don’t need this money to improve their business, and that it would be better to distribute it to shareholders. The dividends may suffer some short-term drops, but over the long run they have grown faster than inflation.

In the US, the dividend culture is somewhat conservative in that shareholders expect dividends to be stable and only go up. Thus the starting yield is lower, but grows more steadily with smaller cuts during hard times. Companies do buybacks as well, often because they are easier to discontinue. Here is the historical growth of the trailing 12-month (ttm) dividend paid by the Vanguard Total US Stock ETF (VTI) via StockAnalysis.com.

European corporate culture tends to encourage paying out a higher (sometimes even fixed) percentage of earnings as dividends, but that also means the dividends move up and down with earnings. The starting yield is currently higher but may not grow as reliably. Here is the historical growth of the trailing 12-month (ttm) dividend paid by the Vanguard Total International Stock ETF (VXUS).

The dividend yield (dividends divided by price) also serve as a rough valuation metric. When stock prices drop, this percentage metric usually goes up – which makes me feel better in a bear market. When stock prices go up, this percentage metric usually goes down, which keeps me from getting too euphoric during a bull market.

In the case of REITs, they are legally required to distribute at least 90 percent of their taxable income to shareholders as dividends. Historically, about half of the total return from REITs is from this dividend income.

Finally, the last component comes from interest from bonds and cash. This will obviously vary with the prevailing interest rates, the real rates on TIPS, and the current rate of inflation. In 2025, we are finally back to getting paid a certain amount more than inflation on our cash.

Dividend and interest income from my specific asset allocation. To estimate the income from my portfolio, I use the weighted “TTM” or “12-Month Yield” from Morningstar (checked 4/1/24), which is the sum of the trailing 12 months of interest and dividend payments divided by the last month’s ending share price (NAV) plus any capital gains distributed (usually zero for index funds) over the same period. My TTM portfolio yield is now roughly 2.69%.

In dividend investing circles, there is a metric called yield on cost, which is calculated by dividing the current dividend by the original purchase price. In other words, while my portfolio yield today is 2.69%, the yield-on-cost based on say 10 years ago, may be on the order of 5% or so. 2.69% may not seem like a lot percentage-wise, but I expect it to grow and in total terms it’s a lot more than 10 years ago when I started tracking it.

What about the 4% rule? For big-picture purposes, I support the simple 4% or 3% rule of thumb, which equates to a target of accumulating roughly 25 to 33 times your annual expenses. I would lean towards a 3% withdrawal rate if you want to retire young (closer to age 50) and a 4% withdrawal rate if retiring at a more traditional age (closer to 65). Too much time is spent debating this number. It’s just a quick and dirty target to get you started, not a number sent down from the heavens! You will always have time to adjust later.

During the accumulation stage, your time is better spent focusing on earning potential via better career moves, improving your skillset, networking, and/or looking for asymmetrical entrepreneurial opportunities where you have an ownership interest.

Our dividends and interest income are not automatically reinvested. They are simply another “paycheck”. As with our other variable paychecks, we can choose to either spend it or invest it again to compound things more quickly. You could use this money to cut back working hours, pursue a different career path, start a new business, take a sabbatical, perform charity or volunteer work, and so on. You don’t have to wait until you hit a magic number. FIRE is Life!

Filed Under: Goals, Investing, Retirement //
Last updated: April 1, 2025
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

MMB Portfolio Asset Allocation & Performance – 2025 Q1 Update

Posted on April 1, 2025 // 8 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

I try to limit checking my portfolio to once a quarter, and this is my 2025 Q1 update that includes our combined 401k/403b/IRAs and taxable brokerage accounts but excluding our house and side portfolio of self-directed investments. Following the concept of skin in the game, the following is not a recommendation, but a sharing of our actual, imperfect DIY portfolio.

“Never ask anyone for their opinion, forecast, or recommendation. Just ask them what they have in their portfolio.” – Nassim Taleb

How I Track My Portfolio
Here’s how I track my portfolio across multiple brokers and account types:

  • The Empower Personal Dashboard real-time portfolio tracking tools (free) automatically logs into my different accounts, adds up my various balances, tracks my performance, and calculates my overall asset allocation daily. Formerly known as Personal Capital.
  • Once a quarter, I also update my manual Google Spreadsheet (free to copy, instructions) because it helps me calculate how much I need in each asset class to rebalance back towards my target asset allocation. I also create a new tab each quarter, so I have a personal archive of my net worth dating back many years.

2025 Q1 Asset Allocation and YTD Performance
Here are updated performance and asset allocation charts, per the “Holdings” and “Allocation” tabs of my Empower Personal Dashboard.

The major components of my portfolio are broad index ETFs. I do mix it up a bit around the edges, but not very much. Here is a breakdown of my target asset allocation along with my primary ETF holding for each asset class.

  • 35% US Total Market (VTI)
  • 5% US Small-Cap Value (VBR/AVUV)
  • 20% International Total Market (VXUS)
  • 5% International Small-Cap Value (AVDV)
  • 5% US Real Estate (REIT) (VNQ)
  • 20% US “Regular” Treasury Bonds or FDIC-insured deposits
  • 10% US Treasury Inflation-Protected Bonds

Big picture, it is 70% businesses and 30% very safe bonds/cash:

By paying minimal costs including management fees, transaction spreads, and tax drag, I am trying to essentially guarantee myself above-average net performance over time.

I do not spend a lot of time backtesting various model portfolios, as I don’t think picking through the details of the recent past will necessarily create superior future returns. You’ll usually find that whatever model portfolio is popular at the moment just happens to hold the asset class that has been the hottest recently as well.

The portfolio that you can hold onto through the tough times is the best one for you. Every asset class will eventually have a low period, and you must have strong faith during these periods to earn those historically high returns. You have to keep owning and buying more stocks through the stock market crashes. You have to maintain and even buy more rental properties during a housing crunch, etc. A good sign is that if prices drop, you’ll want to buy more of that asset instead of less. I don’t have strong faith in the long-term results of commodities, gold, or bitcoin – so I don’t own them.

Performance details. According to Empower, the S&P 500 went down about 5% the first quarter of 2025, while foreign stocks went up around 7%. I don’t remember that happening for a while, and apparently it hasn’t happened since 2009 (see below;source). Overall, my portfolio was flat.

Over the last quarter, here’s a Growth of $10,000 chart courtesy of Testfolio for some of the major ETFs that shows the difference in performance in the broad indexes:

I always like to remember the big picture. Here’s an updated Morningstar Growth of $10,000 Chart for the Vanguard LifeStrategy Growth Fund (VASGX) which holds a static 80% stocks and 20% bonds and most closely mimics my portfolio since 2005, which is when I started investing more seriously and started this blog.

I’ll share about more about the income aspect in a separate post.

Filed Under: Goals, Investing, Retirement //
Last updated: April 1, 2025
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

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Fidelity, Schwab Won’t Let You Trade Money Market ETFs (That Aren’t Theirs)

Posted on March 25, 2025 // 2 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

In case you aren’t aware that a huge profit source for every broker is your idle cash, Bloomberg reports that Fidelity and Schwab are blocking all new purchase trades of new money market ETFs (gift article) from Blackrock and Texas Capital. Here’s what Fidelity and Schwab say about it:

A Schwab spokesperson said its decision is consistent with the firm’s “long-standing approach” of only making available Schwab affiliate money-market mutual funds, while a Fidelity spokesperson said this is an extension of the company’s policy to “generally restrict” third-party money-market mutual funds.

The inflows to those new ETFs weren’t even that big, making this an interesting development:

Yet, the move stands out because trading platforms like Schwab and Fidelity typically don’t restrict exchange-traded funds, even if those funds are in competition with existing in-house offerings.

Indeed, I hope this doesn’t start a trend of more bans of competitor ETFs. Fidelity and Blackrock have worked very closely together in the past, so this is probably rather awkward.

For now, I still own lots of shares of iShares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETF (SGOV) and probably soon Vanguard 0-3 Month Treasury Bill ETF (VBIL). Fidelity and Schwab haven’t banned those, yet. Of course, Vanguard continues to not play funny games with their money market sweep funds. C’mon Vanguard, time for your own money market ETF to create even more tension…

I know that these brokers have to make their money somewhere, but they may have to become more transparent about it soon.

Filed Under: Banking, Investing //
Last updated: March 25, 2025
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

Best Asset Location for TIPS Ladder: Taxable, Tax-Deferred, or Roth?

Posted on March 21, 2025 // Leave a Comment
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

If you are a DIY investor (or professional financial planner) that is looking to geek out on the intricacies of the tax treatment for holding Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), check out the new paper Best Asset Location for a TIPS Ladder by Edward F. McQuarrie. I’ve been building a ladder of individual TIPS for many years, and have been extending it and filling in gaps during the recent period when long-term real rates went up to ~2.6%. Here is a chart of historical 30-year real rates (TIPS pay this much above inflation):

The paper focuses specifically on TIPS ladders, where you hold individual TIPS with staggered maturities such that when one matures each year, it creates a level, inflation-adjusted stream of annual income. The primary unique feature of this ladder is that it is guaranteed to adjust for inflation (as measured by CPI), even if it is higher than expected. Regular, nominal bonds don’t provide this protection. Of course, if inflation is lower than expected, then those nominal bonds will outperform TIPS.

The paper itself is very detailed and took a few readings to fully comprehend it all, but I definitely learned some new wrinkles. However, the overall conclusions are still useful to keep in mind if you hold TIPS. The question is, where is the preferred place to locate TIPS? In a regular taxable brokerage account? In a tax-deferred account like a pre-tax IRA or 401(k)? In a Roth IRA or 401k(k)?

Here are my takeaways, in my own words:

Individual, longer-term TIPS should be avoided if possible in a regular taxable brokerage account. This is primary due to the unique taxation of TIPS and the “phantom income” they make you pay upfront if there is inflation. You can look up “TIPS phantom income” for more details elsewhere, but the bottom line is that it’s hurts you upfront and you don’t catch up. Things only get worse at higher income tax rates, and higher inflation rates. It’s also just an extra annoyance at tax filing time.

The overall preferred location for TIPS is a Tax-Deferred Account (TDA). In other words, a pre-tax 401(K) or a Traditional pre-tax IRA where the tax is deferred but you pay taxes at ordinary income rates upon withdrawal.

It’s better to put stocks and REITs in a Roth account, so also not TIPS ideally. Roth accounts are great overall, but it’s best to take advantage of them by putting stocks and REITs inside as there is not as much added benefit for TIPS (or bonds in general).

The paper also discusses the wrinkles from state income tax and RMDs, but they don’t change the overall recommendation.

Here is a direct quote from the paper:

It follows that if the client has a more aggressive asset allocation, perhaps 2:1 stocks versus fixed income, with three accounts of roughly equal size, then stocks should first fill the Roth and then fill taxable. A TDA is always the best location among the three account types for a bond ladder, especially TIPS. Distributions are required from TDAs, and bond ladders produce distributions. Bond income is taxed as ordinary income, and distribution from TDAs are taxed as ordinary income. Characteristics of the bond asset and the TDA account are aligned.

The paper also states “The paper does not consider the best location for TIPS bonds or bond funds during the accumulation phase.” I would then add myself that if you do really want to own TIPS in a taxable account, you should consider a low-cost index ETF which is really sort of a ladder of TIPS than replenishes on its own with a roughly constant average maturity. For short-term TIPS, there is the Vanguard Short-Term Inflation-Protected Securities ETF (VTIP) with an average maturity of ~2.5 years. For a longer-term, there is the Schwab U.S. TIPS ETF (SCHP) with an average maturity of ~7 years. TIPS ETFs don’t expose you to the phantom income effect.

Again, this paper offered some additional insight for those so inclined. I hold all my individual direct TIPS in a pre-tax Solo 401(k), so I am following the advice. I am not building a strict ladder, so if I ran out of room in tax-deferred accounts, I would hold a TIPS ETF in a taxable account.

Photo by Nick Page on Unsplash

Filed Under: Investing, Retirement //
Last updated: March 25, 2025
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

PeerStreet Bankruptcy Update (March 2025): Why I Avoid Fractional Real Estate Now

Posted on March 19, 2025 // 8 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

My last update on the PeerStreet bankruptcy was about a year and a half ago. PeerStreet marketed high-interest investment loans backed by real estate in $1,000 fractional increments. A few days ago, I received a big, thick envelope with lots of legalese. It appears that actual humans are manually going through each claim and verifying them against their database.

For my part, I have two $1,000 notes that are still outstanding and have been in default for a while, well before PeerStreet declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023. The bankruptcy administrators mostly agreed, but needed to point out that my notes are not “secured” claims, but instead are “Mortgage Dependent Promissory Notes” (MPDNs). Here are notes specifically responding to my claims:

The Claimant asserted a secured claim for $1,000.00, but attached a copy of a MPDN supporting a MPDN Claim in that amount.

The Debtors’ books and records reflect that the Claimant is entitled to Investment Claims in the amount of $1,000.00, as reflected in the Modified Filed Claim column.

Reclassification Adjustment: The Debtors’ books and records and the MPDN support Investment Claims and reflect that the Claimant is entitled to MPDN Claims, not secured claims. The Claimant asserts that the secured claim is secured by real estate, but provides no support for the assertion. Accordingly, the Plan Administrator requests reclassification of the asserted claim to a MPDN Claim (Class 10, 11) (to the particular MPDN reflected in the Debtors’ books and records) in the amounts reflected in the Debtors’ books and records, as detailed in the Modified Amounts column.

With this adjustment, the Plan Administrator seeks allowance of the Investment Claims in the amount of $1,000.00 against Peer Street Funding LLC, as reflected in the Modified Filed Claim column, which matches the amount of the Investment Claims in the Debtors’ books and records.

The Claimant filed two claims for two distinct MPDNs. The other claim, Claim No. [redacted], is also addressed below.

Now, this is what PeerStreet used to say about their “Mortgage Dependent Promissory Notes” (MPDNs) on their FAQ:

A mortgage-dependent promissory note, or “MDPN,” is a note in which an investor receives stated interest and principal, provided the borrower makes payment on the underlying loans. PeerStreet issues an MDPN to investors, meaning they have a direct interest in the underlying loan and indirect interest in the underlying property.

The following is a partial excerpt of what the bankruptcy documents state about MDPNs:

For avoidance of doubt, although MPDN, RWN 1-Mo., RWN 3-Mo. and PDN Claims are all unsecured, holders of those claims are entitled to their pro rata share of the relevant Underlying Loans. All amounts paid with respect to those Underlying Loans are made available pursuant to the Waterfall in section 2.6 of the Plan even if those payments result in holders receiving recoveries in excess of the principal amount of their notes and accrued interest as of the Petition Date. See McLaren Declaration I 10. Notwithstanding this entitlement, however, the Plan provides that distributions on account of MPDN, RWN 1-Mo., RWN 3-Mo. and PDN Claims are made on a pro rata basis for the claimants’ proportional share of the asset or pool of assets tied to such Investment Claims. See Plan § 4.3. In order to properly calculate each holder’s fractional, pro rata share of a particular class of Investment Claim, each Investment Claims’ pro rata interest in the underlying asset or pool of assets tied to such Investment Claims must be measured as of the same date. As a result, postpetition interest needs to be removed from all Investment Claims.

Back in 2018, this all sounded fine. Andreessen Horowitz and other VC firms invested in over $121.9 million. Famous investor Michael Burry put in $600,000 of his own money. Actual, smart lawyers were saying that this was the only practical way to create these fractional investments for real estate loans. We all were comforted by the creation of “bankruptcy remote entities”.

Even if it was really an unsecured note backed that was contractually linked to another loan to a specific property, we’d still only get that money if it was collected by what was basically a small, risky start-up fintech business that may have nobody around to well, collect anything.

My current opinion is that even if the contracts technically still might be the best workaround available, I feel the practical execution and mismatch in the alignment of interests made everything fall apart. PeerStreet was no good at servicing the loans and getting the deadbeats to pay up. They also didn’t have enough skin in the game to care. They didn’t actually hold any loans themselves, they just took a small commission off the top. They were also incentivized to loosen their underwriting standards to feed the voracious demand for new loans given their early success.

I strongly feel that if every PeerStreet executive had to hold a certain slice of every single PeerStreet loan themselves, then things would have turned out differently. Their own net worth would be at risk. They would underwrite better. They would work harder at debt recovery. Just like a certain sub-prime mortgage crisis…

In the end, I put some experimental money into multiple real-estate loans, and thought that PeerStreet was best-in-class. I am fortunate that my overall return is positive, even assuming a complete write-off of my remaining two notes, but I know that many fellow customers were not that lucky. Given these new bankruptcy documents, it seems that there are still people working on the situation and there is a possibility that I will recover some money on my last two loans.

Even today, I still get e-mail pitches for new fractional real estate start-ups. I pass on them all. In the end, the most important promises of fractional real estate are broken:

Your investments are NOT secured by real estate. In every case that I’ve seen, you invest in “notes” that are “linked” to a real mortgage on a real piece of property. The problem is that your name is not on the property, not on the mortgage, and you don’t have any control over the servicing of that mortgage. The legal gymnastics that they did to be able to use the words “direct interest” do not change the fact that you are really just lending money to a tiny, risky start-up to handle everything.

Even if these notes were secured by real estate, I have seen no evidence that PeerStreet had any skill as a servicer able to recover funds from a foreclosure. Let’s take my two Brooklyn loans from 2018 and 2021. I don’t see any possible scenario where if you sold off those properties today in 2025, even in a fire sale, even if the initial appraisal was off, that you would not be able to recover the full value of the notes. It’s not like we had a crash – real estate values have risen so far up since then!

Even if PeerStreet was still fully in business, I wonder if it would have made a difference to my situation. It has been nearly 7 years since my earliest loan was due! Now that they are bankrupt and those same smiling executives have trotted off to their next shiny business, the alignment of interests is even worse. Maybe I’ll eventually get some of this money back, but after waiting for years, my faith in the ability of these real estate fintech companies is shot.

These facts change the risk/return balance on these debt instruments. The upside is maxed out at the interest rate you charge, maybe 7% to 10%. The downside was supposed to be very, very limited because you had a physical piece of real estate to back it up. If that doesn’t hold, then there is no point.

Filed Under: Investing, Real Estate //
Last updated: March 27, 2025
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

Webull ACAT Transfer Bonus: 3% of Assets Possible ($750 Bonus on $25,000)

Posted on March 17, 2025 // 5 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Updated with new offer. The Webull brokerage app is offering an updated ACAT Transfer bonus plus up to $100 in outgoing fee reimbursements on your first transfer of at least $5,000. This specific offer ends 4/6/25. The minimum hold period is 1 year (must hold past 4/20/26). The bonus percentages change with each tier, with the highest being the 3% ratio for the $750 bonus on $25,000 in new assets (or deposits). The bonus is paid out via 12 equal monthly installments.

Here are their directions:

  • Click the “Enroll Today” button.
  • Deposit or transfer a total of $5,000 or more into your brokerage accounts by 4/6/2025.(Joint accounts, Futures accounts, Advisor accounts and IRA accounts are excluded)
  • Receive the first payment of Cash Bonus within 45 days following the offer ends.
  • Maintain your Net Qualifying Funding Amount and receive monthly bonus payments until 4/20/2026.

Here are the full terms & conditions. Here’s what they say concerning offer eligibility.

This offer (the “Offer”) is open to individuals who (i) have a Webull Account (as defined below), and (ii) receive a push notification or other invitation to participate through the Webull mobile application, desktop application, or website (collectively, the “Webull Platform”) to participate in this Offer (such customers “Eligible Customers”).

I clicked the “Enroll Today” button and logged into my existing account, but was met with this popup:

We’re sorry, but you’re currently not eligible for this promotion. If you’d like to learn more or explore how you can participate, please contact promotion@webull.com. We’re happy to assist you!

Check for yourself, but my best guess is that this offer is limited to existing customers of Webull that have never done an ACAT transfer yet.

If you are a brand new customer, you should consider first grabbing their new customer bonus. Right now, you can get up to 40 free shares of stock (my referral link) if you open a new account, deposit $2,000 and keep it there for 30 days. The bonus shares have a minimum value of $3 each, so the minimum bonus value would be $120. It’s a lottery-type offer so the shares might be worth up to $3,000 each, but I’d expect just the $3 each and anything above will be gravy. (Open with $100 for 6 free shares, open with $500 for 20 free shares.)

As with all similar ACAT transfer offers, you can transfer over your existing stock holdings and the cost basis should also transfer over with no tax consequences. You just keep your same shares of Apple or index ETFs at a different broker. If you want to deposit cash, you could also own things like Treasury bill ETFs (ex. SGOV) or ultra-short term bond ETFs and earn interest on top of the bonus.

Filed Under: Deals & Offers, Investing //
Last updated: March 17, 2025
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

BlackRock/iShares Target Allocation 60/40 Model ETF Portfolio (Meant for Advisors)

Posted on March 12, 2025 // 6 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

As a companion to my post on Fidelity Model ETF Portfolios, I also found Blackrock’s version of their 60/40 Model ETF portfolio.

The was prompted by the fact that Blackrock recently announced that it was adding a 1-2% allocation to Bitcoin in their model ETF portfolios.

The world’s biggest asset manager is finally allowing Bitcoin into its $150 billion model-portfolio universe.

BlackRock Inc. is adding a 1% to 2% allocation to the $48 billion iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (ticker IBIT) in its target allocation portfolios that allow for alternatives, according to an investment outlook viewed by Bloomberg.

Of course, this coincided with the fact that last year they finally launched their own Bitcoin ETF, the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (ticker IBIT). That made me wonder, what exactly does Blackrock put into these model portfolio that are meant for advisors? The model portfolio below does not have the Bitcoin ETF added yet:

As with the Fidelity model portfolio, and probably all model portfolios meant for advisors, there is the appearance of technical complexity, with a lot of tiny allocations to ETFs to bump the total number involved to 18 different ETFs and cash (and possibly the new Bitcoin ETF as well). 1% to the iShares US Infrastructure ETF? 1% to iShares J.P. Morgan USD Emerging Markets Bond ETF? 1% to iShares Gold Trust?

However, what surprised me the most was hidden in their performance stats at the bottom. With a relatively low net weighted expense ratio of 0.16%, their gross overall performance (before all fees) was pretty good and hugged the benchmark indexes very closely. However, they had to disclose that their NET historical performance (what clients actually got) was a lot lower… why was it so much lower? Because their managed portfolio apparently comes with a 3% annual fee, charged quarterly!!!

Tucked deep at the bottom:

Net composite returns reflect the deduction of an annual fee of 3.00% typically deducted quarterly. Due to the compounding effect of these fees, annual net composite returns may be lower than stated gross returns less stated annual fee.

So you put your Managed Portfolio clients in a low-cost ETF portfolio, and then add a 3% annual fee on top. Wow, that’s… wow. I have trouble even believing it. I must be reading this wrong.

Another interesting note is that Vanguard’s new CEO, Salim Ramji, was the former global head of iShares and index investments at BlackRock and thus very involved in their push into model ETF portfolios and probably had a big hand in designing them. Will he adjust Vanguard’s suggested portfolios in a similar manner?

Filed Under: Investing, Retirement //
Last updated: March 12, 2025
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

Best Interest Rates Survey: Savings Accounts, Treasuries, CDs, ETFs – March 2025

Posted on March 10, 2025 // 8 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Here’s my monthly survey of the best interest rates on cash as of March, roughly sorted from shortest to longest maturities. Banks love taking advantage of our idle cash, and you can often earning more money while keeping the same level of safety by moving to another FDIC-insured bank or NCUA-insured credit union. 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 3/9/2024.

TL;DR: Short-term savings accounts dropped very slightly overall, with top rates varying widely from 3.7% to 5% APY. Short-term T-Bill rates at around 4.3%. Top 5-year CD rates are ~4.30% APY, while 5-year Treasury rate is ~4.1%.

High-yield savings accounts*
Since the huge megabanks still pay essentially no interest, everyone should at least 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 and solid user experience. 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 saving rate at the moment: Roger.bank is at 5.00% APY (no min), but does require an additional companion checking account. CIT Platinum Savings is now at 4.30% APY with $5,000+ balance, but also has a $225/$300 deposit bonus you can stack on top.
  • SoFi Bank is at 3.80% APY + up to $325 new account bonus with direct deposit. You must maintain a direct deposit of any amount (even $1) each month for the higher APY. SoFi has historically competitive rates and full banking features. See details at $25 + $300 SoFi Money new account and deposit bonus.
  • Here is a limited survey of high-yield savings accounts. They aren’t the top rates, but a group that have historically kept it relatively competitive such that I like to track their history.

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. Marcus has a 13mo No Penalty CD at 4.15% APY ($500 minimum deposit). Farmer’s Insurance FCU has 9-month No Penalty CD at 4.25% APY ($1,000 minimum deposit). Credit Human has 12-month Liquid CD at 4.26% APY ($5,000 minimum) that allows unlimited deposits and two allowed withdrawals. Consider opening multiple CDs in smaller increments for more flexibility.
  • Security State Bank has a 12-month certificate special at 4.65% APY ($25,000 min). Early withdrawal penalty is 180 days of interest.

Money market mutual funds
Many brokerage firms that pay out very little interest on their default cash sweep funds (and keep the difference for themselves). Note: Money market mutual funds are highly-regulated, but ultimately not FDIC-insured, so I would still stick with highly reputable firms.

  • Vanguard Federal Money Market Fund (VMFXX) is the default sweep option for Vanguard brokerage accounts, which has an SEC yield of 4.24% (changes daily, but also works out to a compound yield of 4.32%, which is better for comparing against APY). Odds are this is much higher than your own broker’s default cash sweep interest rate.
  • Vanguard Treasury Money Market Fund (VUSXX) is an alternative money market fund which you must manually purchase, but the interest will be mostly (100% for 2024 tax year) exempt from state and local income taxes because it comes from qualifying US government obligations. Current SEC yield of 4.25% (compound yield of 4.33%).

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 3/7/25, a new 4-week T-Bill had the equivalent of 4.31% annualized interest and a 52-week T-Bill had the equivalent of 4.06% annualized interest.
  • The iShares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETF (SGOV) has a 4.20% SEC yield (0.09% expense ratio) and effective duration of 0.09 years. SPDR Bloomberg Barclays 1-3 Month T-Bill ETF (BIL) has a 4.13% SEC yield (0.136% expense ratio) and effective duration of 0.15 years. The Vanguard 0-3 Month Treasury Bill ETF (VBIL) hasn’t been around long enough to generate an SEC yield (0.07% expense ratio).

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.

  • “I Bonds” bought between November 2024 and April 2025 will earn a 3.11% 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 2025, 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 (my review) 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. You can also get a $100 Visa Reward card when you open a new account and make qualifying transactions.
  • Genisys Credit Union pays 6.75% APY on up to $7,500 if you make 10 debit card purchases of $5+ each per statement cycle, and opt into online statements. Anyone can join this credit union via $5 membership fee to join partner organization.
  • La Capitol Federal Credit Union pays 5.75% APY (down from 6.25%) on up to $10,000 if you make 15 debit card purchases of at least $5 each per statement cycle. Anyone can join this credit union via partner organization, Louisiana Association for Personal Financial Achievement ($20).
  • (new) First Southern Bank pays 5.50% APY on up to $25,000 if you make at least 15 debit card purchases, 1 ACH credit or payment transaction, and enroll in online statements.
  • Credit Union of New Jersey pays 6.00% APY on up to $25,000 if you make 12 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.
  • Andrews Federal Credit Union 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 or ACH transaction per statement cycle. Anyone can join this credit union via partner organization.
  • 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.

  • KS State Bank has a 5-year certificate at 4.30% APY ($500 minimum), 4-year at 4.30% APY, 3-year at 4.30% APY, 2-year at 4.25% APY, and 1-year at 4.30% APY. $500 minimum. The early withdrawal penalty (EWP) for the 5-year is a huge 540 days of interest.
  • Mountain America Credit Union (MACU) has a 5-year certificate at 4.25% APY ($500 minimum), 4-year at 4.25% APY, 3-year at 4.25% APY, 2-year at 3.95% APY, and 1-year at 4.25% APY. Early withdrawal penalty for the 4-year and 5-year is 365 days of interest. Anyone can join this credit union via partner organization American Consumer Council for a one-time $5 fee (or try promo code “consumer”).
  • Lafayette Federal Credit Union (LFCU) has a 5/4/3/2/1-year certificates at 4.28% APY ($500 min). Slightly higher rates with jumbo $100,000+ balances. Note that the early withdrawal penalty for the 5-year is a relatively large 600 days of interest. Anyone nationwide can join LFCU by joining the Home Ownership Financial Literacy Council (HOFLC) for a one-time $10 fee.
  • 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 4.10% APY (callable: no, call protection: yes). Be warned that both Vanguard and Fidelity will list higher rates from callable CDs, which importantly means they can call back your CD if rates drop later. (Issuers have indeed started calling some of their old 5%+ CDs during 2024.)

Longer-term Instruments
I’d use these with caution due to increased interest rate risk (tbh, I don’t use them at all), 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 [n/a] (non-callable) vs. 4.32% 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 3/9/25.

* I no longer recommend fintech companies due to the possibility of loss due to poor recordkeeping and lack of government regulation. (Ex. Evergreen Wealth at 5% APY is a fintech.)

Photo by insung yoon on Unsplash

Filed Under: Banking, Deals & Offers, Investing // Tagged:
Last updated: March 10, 2025
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