OP, I'd suggest a Capital One Sharebuilder account. You can link it to your Capital One/ING savings, which makes it easy to move the money into it. We have our "emergency funds" in the regular savings and the rest of our funds that aren't in actual retirement accounts (401K, IRAs) invested in the Sharebuilder, mostly in index funds. We're relatively young and just starting out, so we can tolerate a fair amount of risk in our portfolio. Not only have we seen steady growth in the year we've had the Sharebuilder, it's relatively easy to get the funds back out if we need to use them (reasonable fee and delay, but we can get to it).

Barclays is offering a .9% rate on a no strings attached savings account. That's as good a bet as any.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why wouldn't you open an investment account at Vanguard and just put it in an index fund or whatever?

It does not look like the OP is the risk taker. Invest in index funds have potential to lose money. Again, no risk no gain.

It's not a case of being a risk taker or not. We certainly have money invested, some in high risk investments (ie our retirement funds because it is decades before we retire). The question is about where to put the money while we weigh up where to put it in the long term (e.g. where to invest it) or how to spend it. This is a lot of money and we don't want to make a decision quickly.

I'm not sure this makes sense. Presumably you've got retirement savings. Presumably they're a mix of some kind of index funds (index funds, equities, bond funds, etc...) If you absolutely needed this cash in say 12 months, I'd say put it in a CD or something (which is about as good as keeping it in your savings account.

But you're just pondering where to put the money while you ponder "where to invest it." The answer is, you put it in a Vanguard (or whatever) investment vehicle that corresponds to your comfort level. Put it in a money market fund, or put it in a low-risk fund (VWINX).

capital one had a checking account where you keep 5000 minimum and get 1%. That lasted about 2 months and it's changed to .5. Ehh - but still better than some and more liquid than a cd

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CDs.
Money market.

Those are basically the only safe, accessible, non-invested options.

They are only FDIC insured for $100k. What do you do when your balance is higher than that?

Actually, they're FDIC insured for $250,000 per depositor per bank for each type of account.
http://www.fdic.gov/deposit/deposits/dis/

If you have more than $500K you open accounts at a 2nd bank.

I think that if you look at the FDIC website you'll find that money market accounts aren't covered at all. OP's best bet is to check out the Deposit Accounts blog and pick a couple higher rates savings accounts. CDs aren't terribly liquid unless you pick one with no penalty clauses- those ones usually offer lower rates.

Please go see a fee-only financial planner. It'll be worth the money and peace of mind.

real estate--apartment building or commercial rentals where you can draw an income without too much work.

i'd pay off your mortgage or buy other real estate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why wouldn't you open an investment account at Vanguard and just put it in an index fund or whatever?

It does not look like the OP is the risk taker. Invest in index funds have potential to lose money. Again, no risk no gain.

It's not a case of being a risk taker or not. We certainly have money invested, some in high risk investments (ie our retirement funds because it is decades before we retire). The question is about where to put the money while we weigh up where to put it in the long term (e.g. where to invest it) or how to spend it. This is a lot of money and we don't want to make a decision quickly.