Who Plays with Their Savings?

Call me conservative, but who plays games with their money? Not me! And the crowd I hang with can’t afford to take chances with it either. I feel really ripped off if I lose $20 at Wendover. Not that I’m always frugal with what I earn, but I certainly want to make the most I can with what I have.

I’m not a financial genius, so I did a little research to see if JCU’s CD rates really stacked up against other offers. And wow! What they offer here is a great bargain. I shopped all over the country for the best rates on 1- to 2-Year CDs. I found that 6.6% was higher in every instance I saw. At most banks, the rate was 5.5% or lower. That alone made me want to transfer a wad into a certificate.

Then I researched early withdrawal penalties, and I couldn’t find any institution that wanted to talk about how I could withdraw even a little bit of my committed money without a penalty. I started thinking that if I wanted to bet that long shot on a horse in Evanston, I could take it out of my JCU CD, and even though I would most assuredly loose the bet, I wouldn’t lose my certificate of deposit rate.

I spent four hours checking out rates, calculating returns, and brainstorming ways I could play my money any better than a steady, secure CD. I called banks and brokers. Talked through possibilities and discovered improbables. What I found was that I could win a million with a few correct answers on “Millionaire,” or go to Vegas and have a sick feeling every time I turned over a card, hoping I wouldn’t lose more than $20. But it isn’t the thrill of the game I seek. It’s the Cash! I’m going with the CD.