Digital Federal Credit Union offers 6% interest on your first $1,000!
 

https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1587808621
Savings Accounts

It seems like few people would qualify to join, but they allow you if you donate to one of specific charities, like this one that costs $10 a year: Reach out for Schools

1. Donate $10 to RofS
2. Join DFCU
3. Deposit $1,000
4. Earn $5 a month
5. Invite blood relatives if you like any
6. Profit!

They also have a huge list of participating employers. I wonder what it would take for your employer to join.

The best that I found anywhere else is 1.7%. $1,000 isn't much, I currently have several thousand in savings, but $1,000 at 6% is like $3,500 at 1.7%.

Do any of you know of any accounts that the average person could open that pays over 1.7%?

I could do better than that. 100% APY on the first $1.

I haven't seen bank interest rates anything like that for around 20 years not even on CDs.

The neighbor's car alarm kept going off in the middle of the night. Funny how it stopped once I set up the Nest camera that my sister gave Mom in the front window. The problem is that it lights up, which causes glare on the window right in front of it. Hopefully if I turn it towards the front door and driveway the glare will go away, but it started getting light.

I looked into other bank accounts while I felt awake:

Mango offers 6% on your first $2,500, but you need to make $1,500 in signature purchases each month.
Netspend has five different terrible prepaid debit cards and each comes with a 5% savings account on up to $1,000 and $20 if you use a referral code and another $20 if you refer someone else. If you connect them to an account like Ally Bank and you never use the debit cards, you can get 5% on $5,000. Set up automatic deposits every $60 because they charge a fee for zero activity for ninety days. I would also automatically pull the interest out.
DCU does a chexsystem pull.
Blue offers 5% on $1,000. They say that you need to deposit $5 a month, which is weird, because you would earn about $4 a month in interest.
Consumers Credit Union will offer 4.09% up to $10,000 after May First (it is currently 5.09% if you spend $1,000 a month. There is also a Swagbucks bonus.
Blue claims 4% on up to $15,000, but most people will have difficulty getting more than 2%. You need to make ten debit transactions a month.
Western Vista Credit Union Rewards Checking 4% APY On Balances Up To $15,000 with eStatements, at least 10 debit card transactions of $5 each, and direct deposit. Unfortunately, they do a hard pull.
T-Mobile Money 4% APY On Balances Up To $3,000 if you are a T-Mobile customer and deposit $200 monthly. It doesn't work out here so...
Evansville Teachers Federal Credit Union 3.30% APY Account On Balances Up To $20,000. Donate $5 to their charity, 15 debit card purchases monthly, 1 direct deposit, 1+ online or mobile banking login, and Receive eStatements.
TAB Bank 3% APY On Balances Up To $50,000 – Direct Deposit Not Required, but you need to make 15 debit card transactions of various amounts of at least $5 throughout the month. If they feel that you are gaming the system they may convert or close your account.

This page lists all of these and many more accounts. I do not know what order they used, I listed them by interest rate. This page lists banks that give you money for depositing a certain amount of money with them.

When I started working at the school I owed $5,500 in student loans and $8,100 on my credit card. I paid off the student loans in three months and if I pay off the credit card I will have paid off $13,600 in debt in less than 12 months.

The school is offering me a whole 38¢ more for next year!

That should be around $301 for the whole year. I have long thought that I would ask for a raise if I wasn't offered one, but I just wanted a quarter, more of a token than anything else. I still am not doing the job for the money, but I am not turning it down!

If I were to min-max my interest I would open an account with Mango ($2,500 @ 6%), five NetSpend and the DCU accounts ($1,000 each @ 5%), and Western Vista Credit Union Rewards Checking (up to $15,000 @ 4%).

I forgot Blue, for however much good an extra 1% interest would make for however long I have it in there, because nine accounts in nine months is not enough?

What would that do to my credit? :)

However, I estimate that I would earn $262.56 in interest in nine months.

Yeah, but I would almost earn that much with just the Western Vista account, right?

Is $62.49 less "Almost?"

If you set up automatic transfers the whole process would probably take half an hour total for $62.49, slightly more than you could get in the DCU account over a year.

The question is: What would I do with nearly $14,000 next summer?

That is 20% down on $70,000, not quite enough for this 520-square-foot house, which is going for $80,000, but who knows what real estate prices will do in over a year:
https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1587866828

Look into a VA loan, you can put that 20% towards something else home related.

I'd look for a place that isn't in such a maximum-security neighborhood. How come that house has bars on the front windows, but not on the side window of the same room?

How come the house next door has huge picture windows in front and a washer and dryer backed into it?

No bars, though.

I cannot explain people.

I wouldn't have thought the neighborhood was that bad. I haven't seen any other houses in Show Low with bars on any of the windows. My family has lived here for eighteen years. In that time:

Someone keyed my Subaru.
Someone stole things like Dad's circular saw out of the shed.
Someone apparently set off the neighbor's car alarm late at night.

I am sure there has been more, but nothing significant.

Oh wait! Someone came in the middle of the night and took Dad's car!

We kept offering to drop it off!

I don't expect Mom's surveillance camera to ever show us more than people driving too fast.

Just an ex-con who missed the view from the inside, then?

I am unsure to what you refer regarding the ex-con, the house with some bars on the windows? We couldn't keep Dad's car and offered to drop it off, but they refused to talk to us, and then suddenly his car was gone.

One day I hope to be able to afford a 2012 Focus SFE.

If I bought a house using a VA loan I could put 20% into a rental house! :D

The VA loan program is great, but it requires the seller to fix every problem they can find, every problem the inspector finds, and then to pay for another inspection. A Veteran friend said that it made much more sense to use another program and refinance with a VA loan. That way you can buy a fixer-upper and save tons of money [by never fixing it]!

It was depressing how much stuff was broken at his house [and stayed broken].

First of all, one problem that I have with houses around here is depicted in this picture:
https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1587933368
Even in Afghanistan we had central HVAC!

I am not sure that I would have considered this home. There is only one good picture of the outside and it looked unusual, but I did not pay much attention to the description until I read "feels like a site-build home."

It always frustrates me how I exclude empty lots and manufactured homes, yet Zillow always shows me lots and manufactured homes. I cannot specify homes with central heating, but I can require the listings to have air conditioning, as accurate as Zillow is.

https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1587935899
This has been up for five days, it is pretty close to Mom's house, and this isn't the first time that I have wondered how Mom's house would be if the front room were extended even with the garage [it is L-shaped, not U-shaped].

[Mom's garage sticks out 10' past the rest of the house. Dad used to talk about spending Mom's inheritance to expand into the backyard, but expanding the front room, moving the kitchen wall 5', and making my room just as big as my brother would be great!]

They are currently asking $189,000, but things weren't selling well before TPgate.

Are you ready for some numbers?

There are probably dozens of banks that issue VA loans, but I doubt this one would qualify. Navy Federal says "Interest rate as low as 2.875%."

First, that is for a 15-year loan. It is a whopping 3% for a 30-year loan. They say that monthly payments would be $796.83 with a 3% morgtage.

They say "Interest rate as low as 2.375%" for a conventional fixed-rate loan, but it is also at least 2.875% for 30 years. That requires at least a 5% down payment, which everybody knows would be $9,450.

$744.46 a month at 3.05%. Funny how payments are lower when you pay more up front.

Putting those same numbers into Zillow it guesses that I would pay $114 a month in mortgage insurance, totaling $858.46--but Navy Federal says "No Private Mortgage Insurance Required."

They have a Military Choice loan "Ideal choice for servicemembers, reservists and veterans who have already exhausted their VA loan benefit. Interest rate as low as 4.000%"

That would have a payment of $902.31--21.2% more than putting down 5% and having a better rate--$56,826 more over 30 years.

Honestly, I would go for something just because it has Military in the name, but not if it costs that much more!

Then there is the Homebuyers Choice loan: "Available to qualified buyers with no down payment required. Interest rate as low as 4.125%"

With $0 down that would be $915.44 a month.

Never bought a home VA have you? I have seen many listings that say cash or conventional only. It's a good deal for the vet, for the seller kinda sucks. Bought two myself.

I wish I could get a VA loan.

The key to profiting is to buy a bigger house than you need, and then rent out those rooms. Owning (a mortgage) is cheaper than paying rent.

The only time that I thought I could afford a house was when I came home from Germany, the owner wanted $94,500 the VA would only pay $79,000, and I looked elsewhere. I put in one or two more offers unsuccessfully and gave up because the house market became too rich for my blood.

They sold a month or two later for $91,000. However, it is supposedly worth $175,000 now, or at least was recently.

Now that you mention it, I remember seeing many listings specify cash or conventional It was dififcult to find something that might potentially qualify.

According to Zillow, the house I bought 10 years ago for $217k has nearly doubled in value.

It would need new south facing windows, siding, flooring, fences all around, and yard work to sell it.

There is a lot more difference between the cost of the loans than the extra 0.125% APR would make it seem.

A $189,000 home financed for 15 years at 2.875% will cost you $232,934. ($189,000 purchase price + $43,934 in interest)

A $189,000 home financed for 30 years at 3.00 will cost you $287,044 ($189,000 purchase price + $98,044 in interest)

15 year loans save a bunch of money but they can be hard for lots of people to fit into their budgets.

We bought our 1st house on a 30 year FHA loan with 3% down. Sold it 6 years later without much of the principal paid off. 2nd house was 15% down on a 30 year loan. We paid on schedule for 18 months while we paid off the rest of our debt and then starting making payments to pay it off 20 years early. Sold that house and bought our current house with 25% down on a 15 year loan. We haven't decided if we should pay off our house or invest in a rental. Right now we are just sitting on the cash we saved for the rental down-payment because - COVID depression.

The 4 unit rental property in OK was $60k and everything was split 50/50 with my partner. It had something like a 6% interest rate initially.

First house I bought was 20% down and 30 year fixed. Got the first time homebuyer credit too ($8k) at nearly the bottom of the market.

Second house I put 5% down on a 30 year fixed as I've re-evaluated my position on avoiding PMI. Investments on cash can exceed the expense of PMI, and it pushes more risk onto the lender. It also presents a good position for refinancing should an opportunity arise. We could have put 20% down, but I like keeping my investing options open, so that means I've got cash.

I can put the money into the stock market since it's at a discount now, or I expect the housing market to take a beating in the next couple years. My wife's employer is 70 years old and probably looking to retire soon, so there is an opportunity to buy a medical practice at a discount.