Check out those online banking rates

If you have money you are saving, you should to check out where you can get the best interest on your money while it sits. Even though the interest rates aren't very good right now, it all adds up. The Internet makes it incredibly easy to research who has the best rates. Just go to http://www.bankrate.com/ . For information on high yield checking accounts you can go to http://www.bankrate.com/brm/rate/mmmf_highratehome.asp?params=US,416&product=33 . They will show you many banks, which ones have the best interest rates, how much you have to deposit to open an account, if there are any monthly fees, and a star system they rate the banks on. It has been obvious in recent months how important it is for banks to be FDIC insured. We have two online savings accounts that we use. We use one for our emergency fund. The other one we use for things we are saving or accruing for (vehicle registration, property taxes, vacation, Christmas, bills that we pay once a year like life insurance, and home repairs). These savings accounts are not a good place to put large sums of money for long periods of time, but we appreciate the ability to earn better interest (than we can with our local checking account) on our money that we need to have more readily available.