With short-term interest rates near record lows, you've probably noticed that you aren't earning much on savings that you hold in checking, savings and money-market accounts.
Savings accounts now sport an average annual yield of 0.08 percent, the lowest in at least 30 years, according to Bankrate.com. And checking accounts offer an average yield of only 0.06 percent.
So what's a saver to do?
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"In some cases, that could mean hunting down accounts that pay higher interest. In other cases, that could mean considering alternatives, such as prepaid cards," according to
The Wall Street Journal.
It offers several tips to earn maximum returns on your savings. To find out what kind of deals banks offer, you can check out web sites including Bankrate.com, DepositAccounts.com and WalletHub.com.
The highest savings rates frequently appear on the Internet. Meanwhile, "checking accounts often offer the least bang for your buck," according to The Journal.
As for prepaid cards, they "offer consumers the convenience of loading funds onto a card that they later can use to get cash from an ATM or to pay for goods at a store," The Journal notes. And some offer yields of up to 6 percent.
However, many prepaid cards charge a monthly fee, which can negate the benefit of higher interest rates.
The issue of what to do with your cash appears particularly germane in light of a new study from
State Street's Center for Applied Research showing that retail investors allocated 36 percent of their portfolio to cash as of the first quarter, up sharply from 26 percent just two years ago.
And the latest
American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) asset allocation survey indicates that individual investors' cash allocations hit an eight-month high of 19.2 percent in May.
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