Personal Finance

Make sure you compute exactly how much money you'll earn from switching with how long you'll likely stay put. If you'd stay put an entire year and only earn $20, is it worth it?

Rather than chasing the absolute highest rate, I prefer to choose a bank that is regularly competitive. Ally bank, Betterment, and Wealthfront are all ones I'd consider. Alternatively, you can use a money market fund at a brokerage. Those react very fast to interest rate changes and are higher than any bank I know of right now, but have basically been 0% in the past while banks paid up to 1%.

You should not be looking to make decent money off your HYSA - just take some sting out of inflation for short or medium term goals. To make money in the king term, you need to take more risk and invest.

Personally, I would find it annoying to frequently set up new accounts just to chase small percentage gains. I set up an account with ally and plan to just stick with them. Rates are good, not necessarily the best though. I'm not particularly advocating for them, just saying that's where I am at the moment. I've not heard of ufb, but they might be good too. Also look at other options like CDs. They are less flexible than a savings account but can usually give you a little more interest (though the rate you say you are getting at ufb looks similar or higher than the best cd rates I've seen.)

Rates are pretty nice right now, but they probably won't stay like this forever. Adding into your retirement account (invested in a target date fund or an index fund) is probably best long term, assuming you don't need the money now.

Just beware of changing interest rates. I banked with CIT for a while when interest rates were tanking pre-Covid and I watched my rates drop every month with no written notice (this is standard practice). Also take note that it may take a few more days to retrieve your money when compared to a local branch.

I finally gave up and moved my money “home” because their login and password updating processes were so cumbersome that I was constantly calling their help line and I became worried about my money getting trapped there.

If you don’t need the money for a while, maybe check out 6-12 month CDs.

I've been with Ally for a couple years and like it. In addition to HYSA, check out No Penalty CDs. They don't have as good a yield as regular CDs, but you can withdraw the money early without penalty and still get the accrued interest.

While interest rates stay high, so will returns on money market fund investments. A simple investment account (likely available from your current bank) with everything put into a good MMF should bring 4+% right now, and is less likely to have withdrawal frequency limits and definitely won't have a term length like CDs.

At Chase, they've got a solid MMF option that's been over 4% for a few months and has same day liquidity, meaning it's basically cash even though it's getting interest. I think it's the lowest risk, highest convenience option currently.