A simple way to make your money work a little harder

The days of earning 5% on your savings account are long gone, at least for the foreseeable future. . . .

If anything, we’ll experience negative interest rates before we see 5% again. That means we’ll pay the banks a small monthly fee for holding our money.

In the days of a gold standard, this made sense because you were entrusting a bank with a valuable, physical commodity that required a large, secure vault to keep it in. They built the vault, and you paid to use their storage services.

In a world of digital money backed up by government debt (instead of a physical asset like gold), it’s hard to wrap your mind around the idea.

Nevertheless, there are ways to earn more on your savings with a little effort.

A typical savings rate is 0.01% with a bricks-and-mortar bank, but you can get as high as 1% through certain online banks.

That’s the difference between earning roughly 10 cents or $10 dollars per thousand dollars a year. It won’t make you rich, but it’s better than nothing.

Click the link to find the best deals of 2016 so far:

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/best-high-interest-savings-accounts/