The rates have been trash for pretty much the last decade and a half.

These conversations are 100% coming back now that the rates are more attractive.

I have a tbill ladder going on and I think it's pretty sexy! 😂

I also have I bonds and I'm super happy with the return from Sept and Oct last year for my wife and I plus gifts for each other. I plan on holding these for a while as an emergency fund. I'll continue to evaluate as rates change but I'll be getting my full 15 months out.

Its partly that the rates have been very unappetizing recently, but its also partly just that it's boring and safe, and people don't like to discuss boring and safe very much.

If you made two posts, one saying you invested in CDs and didn't make or lose much, and another saying you put it all in crypto and lost it...the second thread gets a lot more replies and discussion.

Bottom line, there is nothing wrong with locking in a 5% interest rate and sitting back. It's a rare person who can do this and be happy during a big bull run where they make 5% and everyone else makes 20%. I think the lower returns and higher safety are more for people who have completed /r/FIRE and just want a safe return without risking their nest egg, forever.

Im wondering if doing CD ladders would be a plus right now for the long term while rates are high and lock them in.

Thats awesome. I wish i would have had more money up front when all this happened. Id be throwing as much as i can in the S&P right now as well as fixed income investments. WHEN the market turns around becuase its inevitable, you could make a nice return from both.

Bonds are all virtual now and a little more complicated to buy. We converted all of our son's paper bonds to digital and it was a hassle. The account number is complicated and not easy to remember. If you want family to buy bonds for the grandkids they need the account number and need to be digitally savvy. I suggested we buy some bonds recently and my husband didn't want to go through the hassle because I think you can only buy 10k per person. He didn't think the return was worth the hassle of the website. We do have CDs that we have laddered to mature every 2 months.

Ya. I'm slowly DCAing into equities but I keep telling myself that there's another leg down and I'm making a mistake. 😂

You are able to buy bonds from your brokerage as well. All of them usually have new issue bonds on there.

I feel the same way! i get worried putting in now and then it dropping another 15 percent.

I’ve been laddering t-bills which have been doing way better than cd’s. Pulled the plug to close distressed RE now that prices have dropped out of the stratosphere.

I will mention that to him since we have a good bit of cash coming in soon.

Yeah if you use fidelity or any of those they have them on their. You could also lock in some CD's for nice rates long term if that's what you wanted to do.

this. For most of our generation's adult life these options were not great. there was a short period around 2017? when HYSA started coming back to life, but it was short lived.

now rates are the highest we have ever seen (in our short lives) so ya, CDs and Bonds/Bills are back in the discussion.

I like cd ladders too, but I'm staying short-term until there is a fed meeting where the rate either doesn't change or goes down.

We use Merrill for our brokerage so I'll have him check. We use Ally for our CDs. I remember back in the day when I worked at a bank you could get 8% for CDs. I worked in the IRA department and had to pull paper files sometimes and there were customers who had at one point had CDs at like 13%.

We will see

That’s crazy

It was the 80's. It's going to be my grandma claim to fame along with when I was younger gas was 69 cents a gallon. It was technically only that cheap for 2 weeks because a new station had opened and they wanted to drive traffic their way.

Part of it is that they aren't paper. Remember stock certificates?

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An entire generation grew up with 0% interest rates. Your not going to deprogram them from stonks only go up over night. People were turning 9% I Bonds last year because they only kept up with inflation.

Do you ever think the current “everyone is a day trader” mentality will go ever go away? Lol

Back in the day the only way to find out about stock prices was either working with a stock broker or reading the news paper after the market closed. So bonds was all most people could easily get. That's why grandma had bonds. You could buy them at the bank.

It's different today. People have more options. A good portfolio will include a little of everything.

They are coming back, now that interest rates are up.

In my case HYSA are good enough, and so liquid, I don' care to deal with anything else. I can get about 4%, which is good enough for the amount I keep liquid. Beyond that, I am investing. If I was saving for something huge, but closeish (like a house, or IDK a big boat) I may feel differently.

For the long term you want equities still. Nothing will beat stocks for the long run.

T-Bills are very close to CD rates right now, and are far more liquid than CDs.

Money market funds (another unloved investment) are paying around 4.3% compared to 4.65% for T-Bills, and are not only as liquid, they are immune to interest rate risk.

This person talks about bills and bonds alot, been watching many of her content

https://www.youtube.com/@DiamondNestEgg/videos

Makes sense.

Yeah that’s what I’m doing saving for home improvements

Very true. I’m thinking like less than 5 years

What do you mean by interest rate risk

I’ll have to take a loook

Have you not looked around this subreddit much? Half of the posts over the past half-year are some variant of "which high interest rate savings option is better"