Where to put my money?

I'm not really too sure what I should be doing with my savings at the moment. I do want to invest, but I'm concerned at my lack of knowledge to be doing anything just yet.

What I'm thinking, is while I'm sorting myself out, go with a term deposit. At the moment I'm getting an interest rate of 4.1% on my savings, which I'm unhappy with. So my questions are:

• Has anyone used Raboplus? They seem to have a nice interest rate, but is this the best? http://www.raboplus.com.au
  
• Raboplus state there is a minimum deposit of $1000, but how much should I transfer to an account like this? Transfer half and invest the rest in managed funds? Is one year a sensible amount of time?
  
• What is the best way to transfer my money across? I've never done this before - do you just give the details to your existing bank, and ask them to transfer it? Could I get some tips on what to look out for, and information that I should be asking? eg. fees
  
• I have a debit card with St. George. Firstly, is this the best debit card to have? I'm not too happy with their fees right now. Can someone suggest better alternatives? Also, are there any advantages (eg. quick transfer of funds) to keeping some savings with St. George for the sake of the debit card if need be?
• Investment alternatives? What about managed funds? What is the most profitable way for someone who is still learning about investing, but wishes to invest money somewhere?

HI MB,

I noticed you have a Card with ST George, they have quite a good online account paying 6.4% pa.

As ST G know you, it should be easy to open an online account and put your money there while you think about other things,

G'day mate.

The best online savings account is Bank of WA.

check it out.

www.abetterdeal.com.au

I think you now get 6.8% for your first account with them.

easy to transfer money between accounts and NO FEES!

Think longer term for a moment: what are you going to do with your tax liabilities when you do start investing/trading? Are you just going to keep the money in the trading account and make a mental note about how much you need to keep aside to cover your capital gains or are you going to withdraw the money for tax and dump it somewhere more safe?

I've taken the latter option and intend to run through a monthly process of calculating my tax liabilities based on any capital gains in the previous month, withdraw that money and dump it in ING accounts (I bank with ANZ and have all my accounts with them - I do it purely so as I can see all my accounts (except the ING unfrotunately) on one screen, I hate having multiple accounts across multiple banks).

Consider what macca said about St George - if you operate everyday accounts with them, consider opening a high-interest saver with them, you can dump your savings now, and use it for other purposes like what I'm going to do in the long run.

on BankWest: if you have an every day transaction account with them and you link it to one of their TeleNet savers, you can instantly transfer funds from TeleNet into everyday transaction account then withdraw them. So you could effectively get everything paid into the TeleNet like Salary, link it to trading accounts and just transfer funds out as you need them thus maximising your interest earning potential - and at 7.0%, you're laughing.

I used to do this, but BankWest have absolutely sweet F.A. exposure in Victoria and having a branch just around the corner is extremely handy sometimes.

$0.02

Ideally I want to have everything with the same bank because it does make everything that much easier. But recently I've found St George have been getting a little greedy with the debit card fees. I think it's time I go and check if I can get something better.

Does BankWest have a debit card? I'm willing to transfer my savings/debit etc. if there are some better options out there.

Commonwealth Bank has ordinary savings accounts (low interest) with a card for $5 per month with up to 15 transactions. Additional fees for transactions beyond that level. They also have a high interest (was 6.0% before the RBA put rates up, not sure what it is now) account that can be linked to your main account so you have immediate access to funds.

www.commbank.com.au


ING has an online savings account that pays (I think) 6.15% with no fees etc. I links to your ordinary savings account with another bank but the transfer of funds is not instant (which might be good if you want to avoid the temptation to spend your savings without thinking first).

www.ingdirect.com.au


BankWest has the high interest (7.0% for the first 12 months and over 6% (not sure of the exact rate) thereafter) account that others have mentioned. It can be linked either to a BankWest savings account with a card or alternatively to an account with a different bank.

www.abetterdeal.com.au


There are quite a few others around too. St George has a high interest account that you probably already know about. I'm not sure if ANZ, Westpac, National have high interest accounts but it would be worth checking.

I have my main bank account with Commonwealth and also have online high interest accounts with BankWest, ING and Commonwealth. In my case it was easier to have accounts with different banks as the funds held in them are for unrelated purposes.

BankWest's style of customer service is a little "different" in my experience but very good. Also the website is a bit less intuitive than the others but perfectly adequate to operate the account. Not having any branches in Tas hasn't been a problem since everything is done over the internet / phone and it's linked to my main Commonwealth account from which I can withdraw physical cash, use the card etc. Transfers between the two aren't instant (next business day) but that's not a problem if the funds aren't for immediate spending.

ING Direct Savings Maximiser I believe is now 6,25% which is the same rate as Commonwealth's net Bank saver only you don't get hit with the 5 dollar a month fee for having the compulsory streamline account with it... I went with ING... Compunded daily and paid fortnightly

I use Comsec for trading so I have a CDIA for convenience.

Even though I have a CDIA the Commonwealth would not let me open an online account unless I also opened a Streamline account

Why would I want another account which I don't need ? just so I get the privilege of paying them $5 pcm fees, NOT.

Oh well, just take my money elsewhere

Has anyone else noticed how the larger companies in todays world like to make things complicated ?

Look at all the cr*p Telstra has with all these different plans, also to get power into my house I keep getting rung up by Energy Australia to sign a 3 year contract, considering I have been buying power off them for 35 years I don't need a B****y contract just power as cheap as possible.