[Keiji]

Hi,
I am new to the forum and will take this opportunity to say hello to every
tone here.

I am still a neophyte to the financial world, but over the last year, I have been doing much better at understanding where my money comes from, how much the government gets, how much I get, and what I plan to do with it and what I end up doing wiht it. Please bear with me if my questions seem rudimentary, as they probably are.

My question is:
Other than my savings account, is there somewhere better that I could be saving the money I budget for house repairs (I have an older house which needs repairs on a fairly frequent basis)? or on that note, should I even bother keeping the money seperate from my savings account?

thanks for your input,
Keiji

 

[high octane]

I keep mine in an ING Savings acct. Their rates are decent and I can add accts for free and nickname them such as "car repairs/future car"

Even though I drive a Honda, sometimes repairs are unexpected so I like having the funds readily accessible. Lately short term GIC's yield less anyways, and anything else needs more time in my opinion

 

[ssimps]

Savings account is likely the way to go, but shop around.

I used to be a huge ING fan but they have really bummed me out with how low they have made their saving interest rates this year; yes everythig has gone down in terms of savings accounts, but ING used to be the clear winner and I am not sure they are anymore. Ally 'bank' seems to be the latest hot internet bank thing and they offer 2% savings account and 1.75% cashable 1 year GIC.

 

[Dana]

Shop around for the best high-interest savings account/cashable GIC you can find. Keep in mind:

Your money needs to be liquid so you can access it quickly when you need to make a repair.

You should look for an account with NO FEES. Fees are bad. They eat into whatever interest you earned on the money.

I would start by checking out the virtual banks (ING, PC, Ally, etc.)

 

[Oldroe]

Is there a site were you can verify that Ally is covered by CDIC insurance.

 

[CuriousReader]

Is there a site were you can verify that Ally is covered by CDIC insurance.

Ally IS CDIC insured (I simply have an account with Ally and not associated with them any other way).

This been discussed in another thread http://www.canadianmoneyforum.com/showthread.php?t=1444

and since there were so many questions, I double checked with Ally representative and they said: because Ally is a product of ResMor and ResMor is a member of CDIC, thus your account with Ally is covered by CDIC

 

[Oldroe]

I read the Resmor press release and check CDIC site.

Don't see any connection, some how just have a funny feeling about this.

 

[high octane]

Savings account is likely the way to go, but shop around.

I used to be a huge ING fan but they have really bummed me out with how low they have made their saving interest rates this year; yes everythig has gone down in terms of savings accounts, but ING used to be the clear winner and I am not sure they are anymore. Ally 'bank' seems to be the latest hot internet bank thing and they offer 2% savings account and 1.75% cashable 1 year GIC.

Yea I've noticed that but I'm in no rush to switch to Ally. All savings rates are dirt low anyways right now

What I like about them is their no bs promo rates like their commercials claim. But I'm sure this is one big extended promo rate while they gather new customers

 

[HaroldCrump]

Yea I've noticed that but I'm in no rush to switch to Ally. All savings rates are dirt low anyways right now

What I like about them is their no bs promo rates like their commercials claim. But I'm sure this is one big extended promo rate while they gather new customers

Exactly. Each of the so-called online discount "banks" have followed the same strategy.
I recall when ING first invaded the US banking market and brought this concept of online-only bank with higher deposit rates.
PCF did the same here, and now there are several.
Ally is just the newest kid on that block.
If someone chases 1% higher rate every time, they'll end up with an account in every bank in Canada.

 

[the-royal-mail]

This is similar to what I'm experiencing.

What about President's Choice? They have a no-fee bank account. Might be worth looking into?

For my own part, not sure about the Internet-only banks. Too easy to pull a disappearing act and then the onus is on YOU to recover the money. I haven't brought myself to trusting them yet. Just an opinion though. I'm sure many will disagree.

 

[heyjude]

I use either a Money Master or a Power Savings account at Scotiabank. These are business accounts with electronic statements only and I transfer money between them and my chequing accounts online.

 

[Keiji]

Thanks everyone, I will start explorng these venues.

I didn't even know that president's choice had a financial aspect to them, I thought they just dealt in food products...Learn something new everyday

 

[the-royal-mail]

Heck no. I even bought some nice USB keys from PC lately. Their photo labs have all sorts of smaller electronics, cameras, printers, batteries, DVDs, players, camera memory cards and more. And yes, they do have banking along with ATMs that are usually found in their bigger stores if you want to deposit and withdraw. I've had that PC account for my ebay stuff and it's great. Creates a separation between paypal (who demands bank account access to sell on ebay) and my REAL bank account. CIBC supplies the banking infrastructure to PC. I think PC also has credit cards.

 

[HaroldCrump]

I use either a Money Master or a Power Savings account at Scotiabank. These are business accounts with electronic statements only and I transfer money between them and my chequing accounts online.

Money Master and Power Savings are both available for non business (i.e. personal banking) purposes.
Only caveat with these accounts is that you should never withdraw/transfer money from these accounts directly.
First do an online transfer into your Scotiabank chequing account and then move it out.
So these accounts make sense only if you have a chequing account with Scotiabank as well.
Otherwise you get hit with $5 fee for each transfer/withdrawal.

 

[ssimps]

Only caveat with these accounts is that you should never withdraw/transfer money from these accounts directly.
First do an online transfer into your Scotiabank chequing account and then move it out.
So these accounts make sense only if you have a chequing account with Scotiabank as well.
Otherwise you get hit with $5 fee for each transfer/withdrawal.

This is so true, and of course they forget to mention that when opening the account (at least in my case).

I was at a teller once and they were selling one of these savings accounts to the guy next to me. I told him what you said above as a warning for an otherwise good account type and I got a thank you from him and a very dirty look from the teller.

 

[Keiji]

wow, I had no idea interest rates in savings accounts were so low. In the back of my mind I always assumed that they were typically around 2%.

In fact, I am sure that way back when I was a little kid, I opened my bank account at 2%..maybe that was 0.2...or 0.02 and I just didn`t know any better.

Keiji