Investing in Certificates of Deposit (CDs)

Tip: Watch Out for CD Maturity Dates

January 29, 2008

Certificates of Deposit on a desk. Make sure you check with whoever is holding your CD at maturity. If you do nothing, the financial institution could transfer your CD to a saving account rate, big loss of interest and still tie your money up for an extended period of time.

They almost got me on this one. The teller said "You snooze, you lose!". I cashed the CD in and I'm heading for the Credit Union.

By Bud from Bradenton, FL

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Jacquelyn Valentine
Bronze Feedback Medal for All Time! 145 Feedbacks

January 29, 20080 found this helpful

Top Comment

Very good advice. They DID catch me last year, now I have to wait until 2009 to make a change.

4 Questions

Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.

Question: Certificates of Deposit?

March 2, 2006

I would like to know whether to buy Certificates of Deposit in large amounts, or would it be better to split the money up that you have to put in CDs?

Pam from Georgetown, SC

Answers

Susan Sanders-Kinzel
Diamond Feedback Medal for All Time! 1,023 Feedbacks

March 2, 20060 found this helpful

Best Answer

Sometimes you can get a better rate for larger amounts but really think about whether or not you might need the money or when you might need it, for an emergency or for something you will need to buy.

The length of time is also a consideration. You can usually get a higher interest rate for 1 year than 6 months. Invest it in several CDs of different amounts and varying lengths of time. That way if you need to cash some of them in, the penalty will be on smaller amounts. There's always a trade off in the amount of the CD and the highest interest rates. You can use both to your advantage. Rose is right about the amount of deposit that is insured. Always keep that in mind. If you are dealing with large amounts of money, split it up between several banks so if something should happen to one of them, none of them has more than the maximum amount insured.
Susan from ThriftyFun

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Question: Laddering Certificates of Deposit (CDs)?

June 12, 2006

Question:

Could someone explain Laddering Certificates of Deposit (CDs)? I heard a little about it on talk radio but didn't catch the whole conversation.

Thanks,Ellen from NY

Answers:

Description

Laddering of Cerificates of Deposit (or laddering of bonds) is the use of various dates of maturities; for example: if you have $6000 to invest ,you would invest $1ooo each month in a 6 month Certificate of Deposit . After you have invested the entire $6000 ($1000 each month for six months), you then will have a Certificate that 'matures' each month and it can be 'rolled over' into a new Certificate or you can 'take the cash' (plus interest) if you need the money that month.

By laddering, you don't have to wait four, five, or six months to get your money if a cash problem comes up suddenly one month! If you have to cash in a Cerificate 'early' there would be a financial penalty assigned to your Certificate.

By m.carey

Advantages

Another advantage of spreading your investments over time, especially when rates are changing, is that they often get differing interest rates. Hopefully rates are going up, so investments will get more interest rather than if you'd invested it all at one time at a lower rate.

By susan

Span Over One Year

Laddering is usually done over a span of one year.If you have $6,000 to invest you buy a CD every other month.When they come due you would have the option of taking the money or reinvest every other month vs putting $6,000 in the first 6 months and have no CD due for the other 6 months.

By Dean

Link

A good place to study "laddering" is www.bankrate.com - they have some great articles, and you can get the best rates across the country when you are ready to actually invest!Good luck,slw (06/14/2006)

By Sandra

Long Term Rates

Remember that long term rates are going to be higher than short term, and that rates vary over time; going up AND down according to market forces and the current posture of the Fed.If you have an amount to invest, split it into five parts and open CD's which mature in 1,2,3,4, and five years. As each CD matures, get a new CD with the proceeds with a five year maturity, after all your initial CDs have matured you will have a five year CD "ladder" with five different CDs. This ensures that you will not have your entire investment in a low rate CD.

Even if a CD matures and is reinvested at somewhat lowered interest rates in a given year, others mature in different years and hopefully gain higher interest rates when they are reinvested. You also have a yearly access to your money without any withdrawal penalties.There's lots of banks that will open CDs via the Interent, and for the top interest rates, I think MoneyRates is the most consistent site to find them (http://www.money-rates.com/cdrates.htm).ING (http://home.ingdirect.com/), which generally pays decent interest rates, will create such a ladder for you at one shot. They do most of their business via the web. Keep in mind though, ANY banker would happily set up a ladder such as this if the amount of investment is reasonable. Ing just makes it very easy once you have an account with them.It's keeping your eggs in different baskets! (06/14/2006)

By S Cronmiller

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