high-yield savings accounts – My Investing Discoveries

When Saving Becomes Self-Sustaining

Good news in my financial universe:

My net worth has officially more than doubled since I started tracking, even though I haven’t been saving much of my aftertax income lately; we’ll discuss why that is, the behavioral side and how I got here
I have already made more petsitting income halfway through 2026 than I did last year in full—I’m endlessly grateful to have such a fun side gig that allows me give back to my friends and circle of clients 😻
My portfolio is up 13.67% year to date as of the close on July 2, 2026, beating the Morningstar Global Markets Sustainability index I’ve been using as a performance benchmark; I won’t be making changes, but there is a holding I’ll be watching 👀
I requested a credit line increase with my Discover account up to $13,000; do this whenever you get a raise to ensure you’re using a lower percentage of your overall credit, one of the factors that boosts your credit score!

Net worth: Go with it, it will hold you

When I began tracking my net worth on a quarterly basis in October 2022, I was already pretty impressed with what I had. At that point, I had been working full-time for over five years, paid off my (thankfully) measly student loans and I was ready and eager to save more in my new high-yield savings accounts and employee retirement account.

Less than four years later, I have increased my net worth by 110.91% on a cumulative basis, with an average quarterly increase of 5.04%. In April, I was nervous to track my net worth because I knew I had been spending too much, not saving anything from my paychecks and I truly thought my process was going to fall apart. Instead, when I crunched the numbers, I found I had increased my net worth by nearly 8% since the end of 2025 🤯.

How could this be possible?! I looked at all my different savings vehicles and realized: This was the foundation making me more money. I have two retirement accounts that are increasing with the market, and my current employee retirement account is automatically investing amounts from each biweekly paycheck. My portfolio is healthy and sustainable, and my high-yield savings account with Happen Bank (formerly LendingClub) has been steadily making me money every month with a current interest rate of 3.30%.

The process held, even though my mechanical short-term saving slipped. I was reminded of a phrase I heard in summer 2010, when I attended the Lake Forest Writing and Thinking Workshop (camp for writing nerds 🤓). My writing instructor’s way of telling us to trust the process came from a poem: “Go with it, it will hold you.”

The journey of saving up to even have a net worth has not been a straight line. Out of the 15 quarters I tracked so far, there were three when my net worth decreased by 2% to 8%. If I put those quarters together, that’s almost an entire year of declines—yikes! However, all these time periods were when I knew I would be spending more on moving, concerts and travel. These are all valid reasons for my net worth to drop, as my spending eclipsed my saving. Each time my net worth decreased, the following quarter rebounded and I was right back on track.

Breakdown of my net worth:

16% in personal investments
25% in high-yield savings
50% in retirement savings

The rest is in my checking and emergency savings bank accounts. I can’t believe I made it here, sustaining myself as a woman living alone in a city, and the first person in my lineage to do such a thing! Still, the most thrilling part of making more money for me is that I can donate more to people who need it and give back to causes I care about.

Hitting some portfolio high notes

My portfolio has remained in the green this year, up 13.67% year to date, 19.81% over the last 12 months and 19.78% over the last three years. When I first did research to find a benchmark to compare my performance against, the Morningstar Global Markets Sustainability index was beating my returns. Now, the Morningstar index is only up 6.70% year to date. My portfolio has consistently beat this index over all three periods, something I didn’t know was possible!

During my last portfolio review, I mentioned there were some new grades with no data in As You Sow’s sustainable investment database: diversity disclosures, racial justice and LGBTQ+ equity. The one sustainable exchange-traded fund (ETF) in my portfolio that’s being watched for these grades is the Stance Sustainable Beta ETF (CHGX), with grades of D for diversity disclosures and gender equality. This means the holding is no longer on probation (military weapons grade improved from D to A) and will remain in my portfolio.

You’ll notice that Stance Sustainable Beta is labeled with a “sustainability mandate.” According to As You Sow, this mandate applies to “funds that are members of US-SIF, the sustainable investing industry group, and to funds identified by Morningstar as having ‘a sustainable investing focus as a central feature of their strategy.’”

Here’s what the sustainability mandate means for my portfolio:

In theory, increases the likelihood that a holding will improve its grades over time, signaling that the fund manager is either waiting for more data or more time for these grades to improve
Still not adding an ETF with any C, D or F grades; once a holding is in my portfolio, the grades are allowed to shift as low as D based on the work being done in the background to make these ETFs more sustainable
People problems within companies and industries are going to take much longer to solve than the increasingly dire climate-related issues on the grades list

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To Think or Not to Think: The Financial Question

I hope you are all enjoying some crisp fall weather, wherever you are.

With my latest quarterly net worth check-in, I discovered that I have nearly doubled my net worth in the three years since I started tracking my progress! The beauty of compounding is at play here: The more money I have invested that is making me money, the more money it continues to make. It’s that simple!

Other than that, I want to update you on what I have been thinking about vs. what I have been (choosing) not to think about when it comes to my money lately. This is sometimes by design, as a behavioral finance trick. Each link in this list will take you to a category of articles on this blog for you to explore further.

Bank accounts—I think about them weekly, but don’t always check them that often. My checking account and regular savings account are my most visited; my two high-yield savings accounts are reviewed quarterly for my net worth update, and are regularly invested in whenever I have savings from a biweekly paycheck ✅
Budget—I don’t think about it as much as I used to; I have regular payments that aren’t accounted for in my budget ❌
Credit cards—I think about them a lot, sometimes multiple times per week. This is the primary focus of my finances: What am I spending and—when it comes time to pay the bill—how much do I owe? This is also a good way to prevent fraud, but your credit providers should be alerting you to any unusual activity ✅
Investments—I don’t think about them, but I check my Charles Schwab brokerage account periodically during market shifts (thanks for the heads up, AAII!) and review them for performance and potential deletions twice per year ✅
Retirement accounts—I don’t think about them because I check my progress quarterly, I have a system in place ✅

The aspects of my personal finance that regularly haunt me are my bank accounts and credit cards. These are top of mind since I handle them on a short-term basis, whereas my investments and retirement accounts are for the long term. The one area I need to improve is my budget, hence the “x” instead of the checkmark. At this point, it’s next year’s problem!

The state of my retirement accounts

My retirement accounts are doing well, especially when I don’t think about them! I still have my first 403(b) plan account with Vanguard from AAII, and it remains invested in the mutual funds I chose at the start of my retirement savings journey. My second retirement account is with Fidelity from my current job at Red Ventures. It’s a straight up 401(k), so now I have a fun collection of all these letters and numbers!

I’m actively contributing 5% of my salary to my Fidelity account on a biweekly pretax basis, meaning the money comes out of my paycheck before I even get to see it. Meanwhile, with my employer matching most of that contribution, I’m sitting on nearly $6,500 after over a year of steady contributions and positive returns!

I invested my Fidelity account in these mutual funds that were available to me, using the same weights I applied to similar funds in my Vanguard account: 30% invested in the T. Rowe Price Large-Cap Growth fund (TRLGX), 20% in the Fidelity Mid Cap Index fund (FSMDX), 20% in the Fidelity Small Cap Index fund (FSSNX), 20% in Emerging Markets II (ticker not listed) and 10% in the Principal Real Estate Securities Fund Class R6 (PFRSX).

When I invested in these funds back in fall 2024, two of them had higher expense ratios than I would like for my investments: the real estate fund’s was 0.81%, and the large-cap growth fund’s was 0.70%. My investing strategy is to find mutual funds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with expense ratios under 0.60%, otherwise we’re getting dangerously close to 1%, which is way too much to be giving any fund or money manager. Thankfully, the large-cap growth fund’s expense ratio has since decreased to 0.55%.

My petsitting venture

This year, I started petsitting cats and dogs. It took off when I started networking through the dogs, finding more animal friends to hang out with. My closest human friends also have some of the cutest cats ever, so I can’t resist spending scheduled time with them when they are required to pay attention to me 😂.

So far this year, I have made over $1,600 from this venture! Since I haven’t been as regular with saving this year as I would like, at the end of 2025 I plan to match the amount I’ve made from petsitting and move it into my emergency savings account.

When I initially drew up my rules for this savings account, I wanted to keep $10,000 in it at all times. However, I’ve learned since that I don’t really need that much money available, even for emergencies. I settled on maintaining my emergency savings at $7,000. In the current market environment, it makes more sense to keep money in my high-yield savings accounts so they can make more than the measly 0.01% interest my emergency savings will.

Some other financial decisions I made since we last talked:

I signed a two-year lease for my current apartment so I could lock in the increased rate of $1,450/mo. for the next two years to save myself another $50/mo. increase down the line
I chose my health insurance plan for 2026, and went with the lowest tier for around $30 per paycheck

I’ll be back in early 2026 for another portfolio review! Wishing you all a wonderful and safe holiday season.

More articles on rethinking retirement:
Retiring Early: Memoir or Fiction?
Should Young People Still Save for Retirement?
How Much Should I Contribute to My Retirement Account?

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My Payday Routine

Featured image credit: https://beyondspx.com

When I first started working, holding a physical paycheck in my hand wasn’t necessarily the cliché reward I thought it would be. Instead, it was more of a signal that I could buy things again. Back in the debit card days, I would say goodbye to $100 of my paycheck at Sephora almost immediately. I would put some money into savings, and at the time I was paying off some student loans, but it was never strategic.

Having a credit card has completely changed my mindset. Now, payday is a signal for me to distribute the money I don’t need to spend among my goals. With Beyoncé’s voice singing, “Wait, I hear you just got paid. Make it rain energy,” in my head, I open my checking account to make sure the money actually made it in there! You laugh, but one time that happened and I swear the world stood still for a few hours. If you receive a physical pay stub from your employer, make sure the number matches what was added to your bank account.

The first thing I do is type the number on my checking account balance into my phone’s calculator. Then, I determine how much needs to stay in checking for any fixed expenses like rent, utilities, etc. Take a look at what has gone through since your last paycheck to ensure everything looks correct and you haven’t been hacked.

If it’s not a paycheck that needs to be saved for rent, I go to my credit card statement and assess the damage. I subtract my credit card balance from the big checking account number. I almost always pay my card off in full if I have the funds to do so. Sometimes I wish Discover would let me pay off the pending payments too, so I’ll include them in my calculations just for fun!

Now that I have a better idea of what I’m working with after my fixed expenses and credit card are accounted for, I determine how much I can put in savings before my next paycheck. This time, I have $700 available to save. First, I move this amount from my checking account into my emergency savings account since they are with the same bank. Then, I distribute this amount to my high-yield savings accounts.

This is a good time to check in on your savings goals. Right now, my short-term goals of saving up to invest more and moving are the most pressing. My intermediate-term goal of buying property is nicely funded for now, so I’m going to leave my LendingClub high-yield savings account untouched. I set up a transfer so the $700 will be added to my SmartyPig high-yield savings account. This takes a few days to settle, but I like doing all these moves when I get paid on Friday mornings so they can make their way through the system faster at the beginning of the next week.

This money isn’t just going to sit in my account though, it’s going to be distributed to my two separate short-term goals using SmartyPig’s goals feature. This way, I can clearly visualize how much I have saved for each goal and how much more I have to save until they’re both funded. My goal for investing another $2,000 lump sum into my Charles Schwab brokerage account will need to be satisfied sooner than my moving goal. I have $500 out of $4,000 saved up for moving right now, so once my latest savings transfer has settled into my SmartyPig account, I plan to move $200 of it into the moving goal and $500 to start saving up for investing.

Depending on which payday this is, I will also take a look at my spending for the month, but I’ll save my findings for next time when we look at my budget. Stay tuned for more of my investing discoveries!

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Spending on a Goal

I reached one of my short-term savings goals back in December, and the time has come to spend that money! Though I am doing a no-buy year, my short-term personal finance goals still need to be funded for what I know I will need to purchase this year: travel and accommodations, moving and continuing to invest.

My goals are the reason I want to stick to my no-buy plan as much as possible. However variable they might be, compartmentalizing the amount I have to save in order to reach the goals has made the process easier, and it gives me less room to make excuses for not saving enough.

The Saving

This is the first time I have done a more intricate budget for a goal using the AAII PRISM Wealth-Building Process. Created by AAII Journal editor Charles Rotblut, PRISM is a five-step method for aligning my investing decisions with my goals. Whenever I need to be reminded of what I’m saving for, I return to my Prioritizing Your Goals worksheet.

I used my SmartyPig high-yield savings account to save the $2,000 I allotted for seeing my favorite band the Kills in New York. The idea is to accrue interest on my savings over time instead of moving $2,000 from my emergency savings into this goal all at once. I transferred three installments of $500 over two months into my SmartyPig account, and by the time I had enough saved to reach $2,000, I had earned about $15 in interest. At this point, I didn’t need to transfer as much money in my final installment to finish the goal. While I spend on this goal, the amount I haven’t spent continues to earn interest.

The Spending

Once I reached my goal, I started gathering up how much I had spent on concert tickets, transportation and hotels. When a group of these charges came due on my credit card, I moved money from the SmartyPig savings goal back to my emergency savings account to pay it off. I have my credit card connected to my checking and regular savings account, but I don’t want to connect any other accounts to muddy the waters. Logistically, even connecting my emergency savings account is one too many, but I have it as a backup in case of—you guessed it—emergencies!

After spreadsheeting it, I determined how much I had spent planning the trip and how much I had left over for food and anything else I feel inclined to buy while in New York. I can keep this number in my head whenever I spend $14 on a sad sandwich at the airport, or $20 on an appetizer at dinner. Even with New York prices, I don’t think I will spend the full amount that’s left over, which means there will be some money ready to go for my next short-term savings goal: moving!

The Psychological Tax

While having money saved specifically for this goal and spending it was the plan all along, there’s the psychological effect of spending on a goal to consider. Technically, I am lowering my net worth by spending money on this goal. Put into perspective, the entire amount saved is roughly 6% of my net worth. Before sitting down to write this (just kidding, I’m 100% still in bed right now), I decided it would be a good idea to beef up my savings outside of this goal. I calculated how much I could save and transferred some of it to my SmartyPig account, which is separate from the goal I have set up, and some of it to my LendingClub account for my intermediate-term goal related to property. This way, I’m continuing to save as usual so I can build more of a cushion while I spend down part of my savings.

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Reprioritizing My Goals With High-Yield Savings Accounts

About one year ago, I began my journey through the AAII PRISM Wealth-Building Process. Created by AAII Journal editor Charles Rotblut, PRISM is a five-step method for aligning my investing decisions with my goals. Though I went through the entire PRISM Process, I have recently been thinking about how I want to spend my money next year. This caused a shift in my goals, so in the words of Ron Weasley: “She needs to sort out her priorities.”

When I last performed the first step of PRISM, my short-term goals included amassing enough for ongoing lump-sum investments in my portfolio of index exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and saving up for international travel. My intermediate- and long-term goals were eventually buying property and funding my retirement.

I revisited the Prioritizing Your Goals worksheet, which makes it easy to visualize and plan for how much I’ll need for each of my goals.

In an exciting turn of events, my favorite band the Kills is releasing a new album this week, which means a tour next year! In their words, “it’s been a long time coming.” I’m planning to travel to see some shows so I can visit friends. International travel is still folded into the estimated cost, but I’m not sure if it will be as extensive as I previously planned.

At the beginning of 2024, I plan to do another portfolio assessment to see where my investments are at. If I make any changes, I will invest another $2,000 in my Charles Schwab brokerage account. However, if I don’t need to make any changes based on my strategy, I will be leaving my portfolio as is. That’s what makes this goal a lower priority than traveling, it’s more flexible. Sometimes the best thing to do with your investments is nothing!

I’m also planning to move next year. My current one-bedroom apartment has served me well for most of the pandemic, but I’m ready for a change. A new place in a new area (with a dishwasher 🤞) is in order. My estimated cost for moving includes first and last month’s rent, a security deposit/move-in fee and what I’ll need to pay the movers. I’m inflating this estimate a bit to account for the ridiculous rent prices I’ve been seeing.

Buying property in this economy has proved to be extremely difficult, so I changed my time horizon for this goal from three to five years to a range of five to 10 years from now. Who knows what the future holds, I could be living on the moon in 10 years! But I’m sure someone will still figure out how to charge me property taxes 😅.

My high-yield savings accounts are the primary investing vehicles for funding my short- and intermediate-term goals. My SmartyPig account is designated for my short-term goals: travel, investing and moving. I’m currently earning a 4.25% interest rate on my savings in this account, and SmartyPig has a goals feature that helps to gamify the saving process. I keep rounding up on what I think I’ll need just in case. So if I have money left over after paying for my highest-priority goal, it’s like a little gift I’m giving my future self, and the money will go toward my next short-term goal that needs to be funded.

The other high-yield savings account I have with LendingClub is for my solitary intermediate-term goal: buying property. With an interest rate of 4.50% on this account, I’ve saved about 25% of my goal. Though it’s designated for buying somewhere to live, I’ve been thinking of broadening the category for this account. If I choose down the line to not buy, I could use the funds saved up in this account for paying my rent. I could also use it to buy or rent a studio space for making art that’s separate from where I live.

I didn’t change anything to do with my retirement goal. For now, it will sit there looking at me like a joke until I can allocate more of my paycheck to my retirement account. Technically, my investment portfolio is also going toward funding my retirement since I’ll need all the help I can get. Even though this long-term goal feels so far away, I don’t want to lose focus on it just because I’ll always have more short-term goals. Hopefully, everything I’m doing to save while still being able to live my life and enjoy what I have will result in a retirement I don’t have to fear.

Check out AAII Retirement Investing for planning insights at every life phase.

One-Year High-Yield Savings Accounts Update

Shortly after I last discussed my high-yield savings accounts, interest rates increased again and haven’t showed any signs of slowing! On October 6, 2022, LendingClub increased my annual percentage yield (APY) to 2.85%; later that month on October 26 it reached 3.12%; and by the new year, we broke 4%! As of mid-March 2023, the APY is 4.25%—12 times the national average, according to LendingClub. For perspective, LendingClub was offering a 0.65% interest rate back in March 2022 when I opened these accounts.

My SmartyPig high-yield savings account is not getting as much love, but the interest rate is holding steady at 3.50%. When I opened my SmartyPig account, the interest rate was only 0.70% on my savings. I started a new goal with SmartyPig to have $2,000 ready to invest in my Schwab brokerage account by June 30 to correspond with my next portfolio review. Unfortunately, my SmartyPig goal didn’t come with a higher yield as it did the first time I set this goal back in the fall.

In total, I’ve made over $175 across these two high-yield savings accounts in the last year. Meanwhile, my investments have lost money since March 2022. When going through my transaction history to see how much I made on my savings, I saw the huge differences in interest payments that were a result of not only the increasing yield but also the compounding interest I’m making on my savings. The interest I’m being paid increases because there’s more money in my account to make interest on (like magic!).

Back in October 2022, I calculated my net worth for the first time. Since then, I performed a net worth checkup on a quarterly basis. My net worth has gone up by roughly $2,000 each quarter, which is directly attributed to how much I’ve been putting away in savings. If I wasn’t saving on a regular basis, and specifically if I didn’t have these high-yield savings accounts to make the most of my money, I wouldn’t have made as much progress on increasing my net worth.

Before writing this, I moved the $580 I have allotted for monthly savings into my regular bank savings account. Now that I can actually see the difference my savings are making to my overall wealth, I’m feeling more motivated to save. My goal isn’t to make the most money I can, but to be disciplined with the money I already have. As the many financial voices I have in my head keep telling me: Pay yourself first! It pays off.

One Year Closer to Maturity: Happy Birthday, My Investing Discoveries!

As of October 7, My Investing Discoveries has been in existence for an entire year! To celebrate, I went through all my blog posts so far and updated them with links to posts and categories that didn’t exist when I wrote them. Now, all posts are self-referential to help you find the related information you need from the links within each post.

In addition, I created a Categories page so that you can more easily find exactly what you’re looking for when you come to My Investing Discoveries. The list includes links to my specific series on Hereditary Financial Habits, The Carrie Finances and book reviews, as well as personal finance and investing topics like budgeting, saving, retirement and sustainable investing. Some of these categories only have one post in them, while others are more fleshed out. Let me know the topics you want more posts about in the comments below!

There’s also a new section on the Resources page with financial resources specifically for women. When I started researching whether financial literacy should be gendered, I found through “Clever Girl Finance” by Bola Sokunbi that women are still paid less than men despite women living longer than men. For these compounding reasons, women—particularly marginalized women—are more in need of financial advice tailored to them. Since women were kept from even participating in the economy for centuries, there’s quite a bit of catching up to do. See the Women in Finance category for more!

Speaking of Sokunbi, I decided to go back through some of her helpful “Take Action” sections and try one out. The first one that caught my eye was on calculating net worth:

To perform this exercise, I opened every single one of my financial accounts: my Fifth Third bank account, which contains my checking account and regular savings account; my Discover credit card account; my Schwab brokerage account; my SmartyPig and LendingClub high-yield savings accounts; and my Vanguard retirement account.

I wrote down the value of each account and added them up to find my total assets. I included my latest credit card payment that had yet to go through, my current credit card balance with pending transactions and an approximation of my tab at the dentist under the “total liabilities” section. When I subtracted my liabilities from my assets to find my net worth, I was happy to see the number didn’t dwindle too much.

Sokunbi recommends calculating net worth every quarter, but I recalled that Erin Lowry in “Broke Millennial” mentioned doing so on a monthly basis. I think a quarterly review will work best for me, but even annually would be fine. Monthly net worth updates would be too often, and I would likely feel that I wasn’t making enough progress month to month. I’ll start with doing this quarterly and see how it goes!

For the next year of My Investing Discoveries, I have exciting things in store—including going through each step of the AAII PRISM Wealth-Building Process. Stay tuned for more!

Setting High-Yield Savings Goals

Last time I updated you on my high-yield savings accounts, interest rates were going up and so were my savings. Since then, my LendingClub account has increased the interest rate on my savings three more times!

Back in June, LendingClub raised my rate to a 1.05% annual percentage yield (APY). By the end of June, it was 1.26%, and at the start of August it went up to 2.07%. A few days ago on September 21, it went up to 2.25%. According to LendingClub, this is 13 times the national average savings account yield. When the interest rate was 2.07% at the beginning of August, I decided to transfer more money into the account. Through the end of August (September’s interest doesn’t hit until the end of the month), I had made almost $30 on my savings since I opened the account in March 2022!

My LendingClub account is designated for a future down payment on a house, so it’s a longer-term goal that I have more funds allocated to. My other high-yield savings account with SmartyPig is for saving money before it is invested.

Though I haven’t been contacted about the interest rate going up on my SmartyPig account, it has increased from 0.75% in June to 2.05% in September. Not too shabby! When I signed up for SmartyPig, one of its offerings was the ability to set savings goals. What I didn’t realize is that the interest rate is higher when I designate funds for a specific goal—2.25% (same as my LendingClub account)!

So, I set up my first official savings goal with SmartyPig, which is to have $2,000 ready to invest by the start of 2023. When I began investing in March 2022, that was my Schwab account’s starting balance. At that point, it was all I was willing to part with; I knew I should only be investing money I was comfortable losing. Since then, my threshold for losing money has increased (since the market has been down for most of this year). However, I also know that I’m in my investments for the long term, so the short-term ups and downs aren’t crucial to my end goal. Maybe 2023 will be a better year if people stop saying the world “recession”—don’t let the market hear you!

I’ll keep you updated on how this savings goal goes and when I solidify a better plan for transferring my savings to all of their different homes on a more regular basis. Half the battle is just figuring out what works for me and my money, the rest should be relatively easy (fingers crossed!).

How to Create Your Investing Strategy

Now that I’ve come this far in my investing journey, it’s time to compile everything I’ve learned into my very own investing strategy!

When I started this blog, I knew it was always my intention to write down what my financial goals are and how I want to achieve them. My two touchstone resources for this process are AAII’s “A Lifetime Investment Strategy” guide and an interview that AAII Journal editor Charles Rotblut did with professor Harold Pollack.

In AAII’s “A Lifetime Investment Strategy,” I learned that any investment strategy should have “a clearly defined objective” and “a specified time horizon.” Seems simple enough, right?

In my introduction to this blog, my objective was to “invest in better natural energy sources and learn how to invest for an early retirement so that I can follow my parents’ example and pursue other passions.” I’m not sure about that early retirement anymore, but I definitely want to continue investing in the index ETFs I found that aren’t killing the earth (the market seems to be going up again, and I’m seeing some green arrows on my Schwab account!).

My time horizon is a bit fuzzy, given the state of the world, but I know I want to invest for the long term. Doing so means that I don’t have to constantly worry about how much my investments are making; I can just ride out the market no matter what state it’s in and know that eventually my money will make money. AAII defines the long term as “a time horizon of at least five years. No one should embark on a long-term investment strategy if they are going to need their investable assets in less than five years.” Works for me!

Other lessons from “A Lifetime Investment Strategy” include diversification to reduce risk, categories of investment strategies and the different stages of wealth accumulation.

I remember that when Pollack’s AAII Journal interview “Beyond the Index Card: Implementing the Advice of the Financial Experts” was published, some AAII members thought it was too simple. But thankfully, simple is what this blog is all about! Pollack’s strategy for getting his own finances together in his 40s could be written on an index card. To some this was much too reductive, but to me this was revolutionary!

Inspired by Pollack, here’s my investing strategy on an index card:

Now that I’m contributing to my retirement account, I want to increase that contribution along with my income. I don’t want to be too specific here, as the percentage increase in contribution will be dependent on the percentage increase in my income. Investing in sustainable companies is also a high priority for me, including whether the company itself is using and creating sustainable products and can offer sustainable investment returns.

When it comes to saving, my current budget calls for saving 20% of my income and I’d like to continue doing so. Since I have a few savings accounts now, I need rules to go along with them. My regular bank savings account is just for emergency savings, so when the balance on that account is over $10,000, the rest should be in one of my high-yield savings accounts or invested.

My credit card has been such an important addition to my personal finance arsenal, and I’ve come up with a system to pay it off twice a month whenever my paycheck comes in so that I don’t have to think too much about my balance for the rest of the month.

When I first moved out on my own, I made a deal with myself to never have a monthly rent payment that was equal to or greater than a single paycheck. I knew I wouldn’t be able to live the life I wanted if half of my income was going to just rent. So far, I’ve managed to make this work by setting hard limits on how much my rent can be when looking for future living situations.

Last but not least, my latest blog post discussed donations as an investment and why I’m passionate about them—so passionate that they made it on the index card! You’ll notice that there are some empty lines on the index card. I want to leave some room for me and my strategy to grow and change together. So whenever I feel the need to alter my strategy, if I’m ever comfortable investing in stocks, or if I ever work with a financial adviser, I can work these changes into my index card.

I hope you find this a helpful starting point for thinking about your own investing strategy and how you want to manage your finances over the rest of your lifetime! (No pressure!)

High-Yield Savings Accounts: Where Are They Now?

While I may not be making money in my investments right now, my high-yield savings accounts are making me more than I’ve made in years on my savings!

The market is down. Even if you’re not in the market, I’m sure you heard. But I’ve been trained well by AAII; I’m not scared by the red numbers on my Schwab account. In fact, I’ve made friends with them! We’re getting brunch on Sunday since the market is closed.

You might also be hearing about interest rates lately, and the possibility of them being raised. One of my savings accounts just raised my interest rate! It was an email I actually wanted to see from an institution I keep my money with. My high-yield savings account with LendingClub is now yielding 1.05% per year, up from 0.65% when I opened my account. LendingClub also noted that there is no minimum balance for my account (before it was $2,500). This makes me excited to see what this account can do for me; it’s already made a whopping $6.44 since the end of March (compared to $0.13 a month on my regular savings account, we’re living like kings).

I recall Erin Lowry saying 1.05% is the best rate on the market in “Broke Millennial,” so I feel like I lucked out with LendingClub. But Lowry also says, “Online banks will routinely fiddle around with the APY on savings accounts. One month it’s 1.05 percent APY, and two months later it drops to 0.75 percent. It’s actually within the bank’s right to do this—but that doesn’t mean you should hang tight at your measly 0.01 percent rate with your current bank because another bank might change from 1.00 percent APY to something a little bit lower. Because 0.75 percent still crushes 0.01 percent.” It’s good to know that my interest rate might not stay at 1.05% forever, especially since interest rates are fluctuating in other areas of the economy.

So with this higher interest rate, I should probably add more money to my LendingClub savings account to take advantage of it! My other high-yield savings account with SmartyPig is also doing well, and I’ll be adding more money to it soon to make the most of the 0.75% yield.

If you want to know more about interest rates, AAII’s financial writers and guest writers all have much smarter things to say than I do—I’m still recovering from high school trigonometry.