Your bank can do more than just keep your money safe. It offers resources, products, services and tools for reducing spending, boosting savings, achieving financial goals and building long-term wealth.
Here are a few ways to put them to good use.
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Get Expensive Financial Planning Services for Free
All major banks and many medium and small ones provide tutorials, explainers and other educational resources about banking, investing, saving and money management — but there’s simply no substitute for working with a professional financial planner. However, they don’t come cheap — but they might come free depending on where you bank.
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For example, Chase offers the J.P. Morgan Wealth Plan, a free digital planning coach that customers can use to budget, set goals, establish milestones and track their progress. Then, they can collaborate with a human J.P. Morgan advisor with access to the client’s profile to offer personalized advice and customized suggestions for potential adjustments.
Chase is hardly alone. For example, USAA offers free financial planning with every account and credit unions are at least as likely as banks to do the same.
Save Strategically
Shopping around for the highest deposit yield is just one part of getting the most out of your savings account. Most banks offer the following resources for wealth building through their apps or websites:
Automated saving: By scheduling automatic transfers as soon as your paycheck hits your account, you can treat saving as a bill and pay yourself first while ensuring consistent contributions to accelerate the power of compounding over time.
Buckets: Organize your savings account into separate, dedicated buckets to fund different wealth-building goals, such as saving money for a down payment on a home or to have cash on hand to jump on investing opportunities with linked brokerage accounts.
Expense tracking: Many banks integrate expense-tracking tools into their apps. Use them to find opportunities to trim unnecessary spending and divert those dollars into savings.
Leverage CDs for Maximum Growth
According to CBS News, CD rates peaked in 2023, when rates over 5.5% were easy to find — but you can still lock in respectable rates of 4% to 4.5%.
Banking customers can’t control interest rates, but they can use strategies to maximize their gains and squeeze as much wealth-generating value out of an under-appreciated banking resource: CDs.
CD ladders: Divide your funds to buy multiple CDs with staggered maturity dates to stay flexible. When shorter-term CDs mature, you can use the cash to reinvest if rates have risen while they aged. If rates fell, you could invest that money elsewhere as your longer-term CDs continue growing at the higher rates you initially locked in.
CD bullets: Put all your available cash into several CDs that mature simultaneously to coincide with a major goal or purchase.
CD barbells: Split your savings into only short-term and long-term CDs for an easier-to-manage CD mini-ladder.
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Money Management: Better Ways To Use Your Bank’s Resources To Grow Your Wealth
