Many people cringe when they hear the word “interest.” To many, it means what they pay on their credit cards, mortgage, car payment, student, and other loans every month on top of the principle. Those do exist! I am not saying that they don’t. Although, a certain amount of student interest and all mortgage interest are tax deductible, but that is for another future blog here at NinjaGhostInvestments.com.

Today I want to talk about what I call the “good” interest; the interest you can earn on your savings account every month. Today because of the economy the 4%, 5%, even as much as 15%+ interest available in the 1980’s & 1990’s is no longer available (never say never, however!). In addition, if you go to a traditional bank in your neighborhood, you’ll likely get about a .01% interest rate on your savings account. Really?!

Never fear, there are always better options namely through online banking. Although there currently may be a few higher rates out there (maybe 1.05% if you are lucky, as of this writing), my favorite place right now to hold an online savings account/checking account is https://www.aspiration.com and the Aspiration Summit Checking account. Currently, on any account with no minimum you can earn .25% interest, and on accounts with over $2,500 as I have, you can earn 1% interest! After years we are currently going through some changes in the United States and interest rates are currently, slowly, rising. For credit cards, etc.. this means something different which we will cover in the future. For savers, this is a great thing. Even though it won’t be immediate, eventually these rates will be rising as long as the interest rates the Fed sets continue to rise. Therefore you could possibly see this .25%-1% go up in the future.

Now why is a savings account with 1% interest even important, you may be asking. For those that don’t quite understand, let me break it down for you. Say you open an Aspiration account with the $2,500 minimum to earn the 1% rate. Right off the bat, every month you will receive a roughly $2.08 interest payment based off the $25 each year which would be due (1% of $2,500). Say you added nothing ever again, and each month, slowly, you would be earning more and more as the initial $2,500 would be constantly going up. Kind of exciting, isn’t it? Now imagine you added money every week, every month, bi-monthly, you name it. Eventually you may get up to say $50,000, as an example. That would be earning roughly $500 per year, which breaks down to roughly $41.67 per month! Just imagine this changing as interest rates rise over time!

Of course, there are better gains out there to be had, such as in the stock market. These gains, however, are much more volatile and not guaranteed. Savings is guaranteed, depending on the current interest rate. I am big into investing and diversifying my portfolio, and savings is an essential part of that.

Some other solid features Aspiration has to offer include a few investment funds you can look into putting part of your money into, known as their Flagship Fund & Redwood Fund. Thus far, they have had good returns so these are worth looking into, if nothing else. They also offer an IRA which you can open, a debit/ATM card you can get for free, an NO FEES WHATSOEVER unless you choose to pay something. Yes, you heard that right. Aspiration runs off of a sort of “honor system” where you choose what, if anything, you want to pay every month. I am not joking! If you do choose to pay something, Aspiration does a lot of charity work with the funds you supply, again, if any.

Lastly, here is what just might be the selling point on opening up an Aspiration account right now. I know it was for me. You can literally use ANY ATM you want, and pay nothing. Aspiration has no ATM fees, and any fees that you may receive from a certain ATM (a gas station, a grocery store, ANYWHERE) you will get paid back from Aspiration at the end of every month. Again, yes, you read that right!

I love the website Aspiration has, I enjoy the app, and you can’t beat the fee structure. I firmly stand behind Aspiration and recommend that everyone should at least open an account and give it a shot. You have nothing to lose and a lot to gain. I look forward to seeing what future improvements they make, as so far it’s a solid account to have and where I currently keep the majority of my liquid money.

Thanks for reading the blog and as always, if you have any questions or comments please leave them below and I will reply! I appreciate you!

Thanks again,

Brent Ott