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Why you should renew your CD after it matures
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The rate environment of recent years has not been favorable for borrowers but it has been a boost for savers. Thanks to decades-high inflation and a rapid rise in interest rates meant to tame it, savers have seen their returns increase exponentially.
It’s not difficult to find a high-yield savings account over 5% right now while select savers can secure certificate of deposit (CD) accounts up to 7%. With hundreds and potentially thousands of dollars to be made on these accounts, it’s important to know what to do when the CD term ends and the account has matured.
Today’s rate climate is unique — and changes are inevitable. Rate cuts are on the horizon. That said, a compelling case exists for savers to renew their current CDs after they mature. Below, we’ll detail three reasons why it’s worth doing.
Start by seeing what new CD rate you may qualify for here now.
Why you should renew your CD after it matures
Here are three reasons why you should renew your CD when it matures.
You may be able to get a better rate
CD rates have been elevated for much of the last two years, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get an even higher one than what you initially secured. You may be able to get a better rate for the same CD length or if you move it to a shorter or longer term.
It pays, then, to shop around to see what better rate you may be able to get. This may require you to leave your current lender to get a better rate somewhere else (online banks are highly competitive right now). But the move could be worth it to earn more interest. That said, don’t just look at the interest rate as fees could easily diminish what you think you’ll earn.
See what better rates you may be eligible for here today.
Today’s rates are higher than usual
Today’s CD rates are higher than usual, especially compared to the pandemic-era lows savers had been accustomed to. But with interest rate cuts likely for later this year and 2025, it makes sense to lock in today’s elevated returns long-term.
Since CD rates are locked — meaning they can’t change after the account has been opened — it may be beneficial to renew your CD at a longer term than what you currently have. This will guarantee that higher rate for months and years to come, regardless of any activity that results in a lower rate environment overall.
The alternatives may not be as advantageous
Let’s say you elect not to renew your CD account. Where would you move your funds then? Regular savings accounts are falling far behind the pace of inflation, averaging just 0.47% currently. High-yield savings accounts, meanwhile, have rates comparable to the best CDs, but those rates are variable and subject to change. And, rates on these accounts will fall when the benchmark interest rate does.
High-yield checking accounts, meanwhile, are scarce and come with specific requirements to earn that yield. With these popular alternatives not as advantageous as CDs, for many, it makes sense then to renew your CD upon maturity.
The bottom line
Savers with expiring CD terms have multiple reasons to renew their accounts. Not only may they be able to get a better rate, but that rate be significantly higher now thanks to today’s elevated environment. And when stacked against popular alternatives like traditional and high-yield savings accounts, it becomes clear that the best way forward to earn big returns is by renewing a CD. That said, savers will have a limited grace period — the time between their CD matures and it automatically renews — to act. So it’s beneficial to understand your next steps now before that date approaches.
A passenger successfully landed a small plane on Friday after the pilot had a medical emergency, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
The twin-engine Beechcraft King Air 90 was traveling from Henderson Executive Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada to Monterey Regional Airport in California, with a pilot and one other person on board, the FAA said.
The pilot suffered an unspecified medical emergency while flying, the FAA said, forcing the passenger to take the controls and make an emergency landing at Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield, California.
The Kern Fire Department told CBS News affiliate KBAX that firefighters were called to a report of a medical emergency on the plane. The pilot was reported to be “incapacitated,” the fire department said. Firefighters saw the plane approach and land safely, then “chased” the plane down the runway in emergency vehicles to meet it.
The FAA did not release the passenger or pilot’s identities nor give an update on the pilot’s condition. The pilot was taken to an area hospital by ambulance. The passenger did not report any injuries.
The FAA and the National Transportation Security Board will investigate the incident, the FAA said.
Congolese authorities began vaccination against mpox on Saturday, nearly two months after the disease outbreak that spread from Congo to several African countries and beyond was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization.
The 265,000 doses donated to Congo by the European Union and the U.S. were rolled out in the eastern city of Goma in North Kivu province, where hospitals and health workers have been overstretched, struggling to contain the new and possibly more infectious strain of mpox.
Congo, with about 30,000 suspected mpox cases and 859 deaths, accounts for more than 80% of all the cases and 99% of all the deaths reported in Africa this year. All of the Central African nation’s 26 provinces have recorded mpox cases. Officials in Congo previously told CBS News that they’ve struggled to diagnose patients and provide basic care in the vast country of 100 million people, where a fragile, under-resourced healthcare system is also burdened by the stigma associated with the virus.
Although most mpox infections and deaths recorded in Congo are in children under age 15, the doses being administered are only meant for adults and will be given to at-risk populations and front-line workers, Health Minister Roger Kamba said this week.
“Strategies have been put in place by the services in order to vaccinate all targeted personnel,” Muboyayi ChikayaI, the minister’s chief of staff, said as he kicked off the vaccination.
Moses Sawasawa / AP
At least 3 million doses of the vaccine approved for use in children are expected from Japan in the coming days, Kamba said.
Mpox, also known as monkeypox, had been spreading mostly undetected for years in Africa before the disease prompted the 2022 global outbreak that saw wealthy countries quickly respond with vaccines from their stockpiles while Africa received only a few doses despite pleas from its governments.
However, unlike the global outbreak in 2022 that was overwhelmingly focused on gay and bisexual men, mpox in Africa is now being spread via sexual transmission as well as through close contact among children, pregnant women and other vulnerable groups, Dr. Dimie Ogoina, the chair of WHO’s mpox emergency committee, recently told reporters.
More than 34,000 suspected cases and 866 deaths from the virus have been recorded across 16 countries in Africa this year. That is a 200% increase compared to the same period last year, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
A lack of diagnostic materials and basic medicines to treat the virus, which can improve survival rates, have also hampered efforts to contain the outbreak, and access to vaccines remains a challenge.
Moses Sawasawa / AP
The continent of 1.4 billion people has only secured a commitment for 5.9 million doses of mpox vaccines, expected to be available from October through December, Dr. Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa CDC, told reporters last week. Congo remains a priority, he said.
At the vaccination drive in Goma, Dr Jean Bruno Kibunda, the WHO representative, warned that North Kivu province is at a risk of a major outbreak due to the “promiscuity observed in the camps” for displaced people, as one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis caused by armed violence unfolds there.
The news of the vaccination program brought relief to many in Congo, especially in hospitals that had been struggling to manage the outbreak. Doctors with several charities working in the country have told CBS News they’re overstretched and short on supplies, even having to use tents and mattresses on the floor of makeshift isolation wards to treat a constant influx of patients.
“If everyone could be vaccinated, it would be even better to stop the spread of the disease,” said Dr. Musole Mulambamunva Robert, the medical director of Kavumu Hospital, one of the mpox treatment centers in eastern Congo.
Eastern Congo has been beset by conflict for years, with more than 100 armed groups vying for a foothold in the mineral-rich area near the border with Rwanda. Some have been accused of carrying out mass killings.
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