Canadian High Interest Savings Bank Accounts

Well Derek, from my perspective, I'm looking for a short term savings plan. High interest savings accounts allows for low risk investment with all the flexibility I need. Say of instance, you're saving up for a new car. This is a great way to track your savings set aside for your down payment and it'll earn interest risk-free. Typically, mutual funds are a more long term perspective investment, not ideal for everyone.

I find that having my money sit in a high interest savings account is better than in a regular chequing account, even if it is only a couple of dollars a month. It almost provides me with a budgeting tool!

High interest savings accounts are not for everyone, but if you ever run into a situation where you need to save up for something, you may want to use it again! Maybe you want to go on a vacation! Use their pre-authorized transfers to save up the exact amount you want within the right time frame!

I use high interest savings accounts for my emergency fund. I figure if I'm going to set aside $5K to $10K for an emergency, I might as well put it in a high-interest savings account rather than stuff it in a cookie jar so i don't take too much of a hit from taxes and inflation. I would also consider using such an account to save up for a purchase rather than finance it (an all-too-little used concept in North America). I've got four of these acounts open at the moment, and I use a spreadsheet to figure out how the funds should be allocated between these accounts to maximize returns (depending on interest rates, promotional offers, minimum account balances, fees, etc…). This works great in the current environment where electronic fund transfers are free, but I suspect the banks will be colluding to hit consumers with transfer fees to try and reduce volatility.

Hi, right now I also use citizens as my high interest savings account. It's great, however, I only do one transaction a month so I will probably change to one with even higher interest than the 3.8% offered now. I originally stayed away from others such as Achieva due to high fees, and ICICI because, well everyone seems to hate them.

I also use this Account as an emergency fund that gains me interest. My next step is to begin investing in a 3 year escalator term deposit. I will take 1/4 of the money in my savings and place it in this term deposit, and leave the rest in savings. Then the next year I will deposit the next 1/4 of my money in a new 3 year escalator term deposit and then the following year I will do another 1/4. So that I will have 3/4 of my savings earning a much higher interest rate.

The highest I can find at the moment is 4.85% still with Citizens so I'm looking around cause I'm sure I can do better.

Anyway, ideally this will have the benefit that every year I will have 1/4 of my money in high interest savings, and 1/4 will come to term, so I will always have access to 50% of my money if a better system comes along.

However, I'm open to any better ideas, or if you guys know of a better rate to park your money at pass it along. Excluding flash in the pans like Canadian Tires 5.5% promotional rates.

seems like you are good at what you do