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How much money should you deposit in a CD now? Here’s what experts say
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Both inflation and interest rates have been pretty high over the last few years. While the former isn’t great for anyone, as inflation can vastly (and quickly) increase the cost of everything from housing to fuel for your vehicles, the latter has been nice for savers, allowing them to earn significantly more on certificates of deposit (CDs) than they could have previously.
The exact amount you stand to benefit from with these higher rates depends on how much you deposit into your CD. While many banks have minimums — which usually range between $500 to $1,000 — the maximum deposit amounts vary more widely, and you’ll want to choose the right amount to maximize savings without straining your finances.
Ready to start earning more interest on your savings? Find out your top CD account options now.
How much money should you deposit in a CD now? Here’s what experts say
Not sure how much to put in your CD account? Here’s what experts say to do.
Look at your finances
The best place to start is to look at your finances. How much do you have that you can comfortably deposit into a CD without stressing your budget?
“I would start with looking at what you have saved and could potentially invest,” says Brittany Pedersen, director of deposit and payment operations at Georgia’s Own Credit Union. “You can review the previous year to see how often you needed to draw on saved funds and any life events that affected you financially. Then consider any possible upcoming expenses — vacations, home repairs, car repairs, etc. — and make sure that you are still leaving enough funds liquid to cover those unexpected costs.”
Financial pros generally recommend having at least six months of expenses in an emergency fund, so make sure you have that in place before investing any extra cash.
“Before deciding on a number first make sure you have your fast cash or emergency fund set up,” says Cynthia Campos Delgado, founder and financial advisor at Campos Wealth Management. “Leave that where you can access it without incurring a penalty, then anything above that fund, you can determine how much you are comfortable not touching for an extended period and put it into a CD.”
Explore today’s top CD accounts and find the right one for you here.
Think ahead
You should also look toward the future when determining what to deposit in your CD account. For one, you need to have a grasp on any upcoming expenses you need funds ready for. You should also have an idea of what you’ll use the eventual CD earnings for — and when you’ll need them.
“There is no right or wrong amount to deposit into a CD, it just depends on the money you have available and when you plan to use it,” says Kendall Meade, financial planner at SoFi. “Someone saving for a house down payment may put $50,000 into a CD, whereas someone just using it for a portion of their emergency savings may only put $10,000.”
Knowing your end goal for the money also helps you avoid early withdrawal penalties, which many CDs come with.
“The money you’re putting into the CD should be an amount you don’t need to touch for the duration of the term,” Ben McLaughlin, president of saving platform Raisin, says.
Don’t stretch too thin
Whatever you do, don’t push your financial limits just to put more money in your CD. Not only could this make paying bills and dealing with unexpected expenses challenging, but it could also force you to withdraw funds early if you’re in a pinch. Again, this would come with an early withdrawal penalty.
“It may be more beneficial to go with a slightly lower amount you don’t need access to for the duration of the product rather than stretching yourself to put more money in the CD and risk incurring a penalty if you need your money earlier than expected,” McLaughlin says. “Take the extra time to crunch the numbers and see what situation will serve you best.”
Consider laddering
If you’re not 100% sure when you’ll need the funds, you can build a CD ladder instead of pouring all your funds into a single CD account.
This strategy requires you to open several CDs, all with different maturity lengths. Then, when the first one matures, you can decide if you want to withdraw the funds or roll them into a new CD to use at a later date.
“If you are laddering, I would recommend putting the same amount in each of the accounts,” Pederson says. “This will ensure that as they renew, you have access to a similar amount of funds.
Another strategy is to put a larger amount in your longest-term CD, as this will typically have the highest rate. This can be smart “if you think rates may drop soon,” McLaughlin says, as it locks in that high rate for longer.
“Or, if you think you may need access to some of your funds sooner rather than later, you can put a larger amount of money into a product with a shorter term,” McLaughlin says.
The bottom line
The Federal Reserve is largely expected to cut interest rates later this year, which could mean lower rates on CDs are on the horizon. If you want to take advantage of today’s higher rates, consider opening your account soon. According to the CME FedWatch Tool, rate cuts could come as soon as September.
And if you’re not sure how much to put into your account, talk to a financial advisor or investment professional. They can help you make the right choice for your budget and goals.
Two highway crashes in southeastern Afghanistan killed a combined total of 50 people and injured 76, a government spokesman said Thursday.
One was a collision between a bus and an oil tanker on the Kabul-Kandahar highway late Wednesday, said Hafiz Omar, a spokesman for the governor of Ghazni province.
The other, also late Wednesday and in the same province, was in a different area of the same highway, which connects the Afghan capital with the south.
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Hamidullah Nisar, the provincial head of the Taliban-run Information and Culture Department, told the Reuters news agency the other accident involved a cargo truck, adding that some of those injured in both collisions were in critical condition.
Omar said many of the injured were taken to hospitals in Ghazni and patients in more serious condition were transferred to Kabul. Women and children were among the casualties, he said.
Authorities were in the process of handing over the bodies to families, Omar said.
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Crash survivor Abdullah Khan, who was being treated in a Ghazni hospital, said he didn’t know how many people had either died or were injured.
“I got out from the bus myself and heard the sound of moaning. There was blood everywhere. Some people had head injuries and others had hurt their legs.”
MOHAMMAD FAISAL NAWEED / AFP via Getty Images
Traffic accidents are common in Afghanistan, mainly due to poor road conditions and driver carelessness.
MOHAMMAD FAISAL NAWEED / AFP via Getty Images
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France’s President Emmanuel Macron tours cyclone-battered Mayotte, meets survivors pleading for help
Mamoudzou, Mayotte — France’s President Emmanuel Macron traveled Thursday to the Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte to survey the devastation that Cyclone Chido wrought across the French territory as thousands of people tried to cope without bare essentials such as water or electricity.
“Mayotte is demolished,” an airport security agent told Macron as soon as he stepped off the plane.
The security agent, Assane Haloi, said her family members, including small children, are without water or electricity and have nowhere to go after the strongest cyclone in nearly a century ripped through the French territory of Mayotte off the coast of Africa on Saturday.
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“There’s no roof, there’s nothing. No water, no food, no electricity. We can’t even shelter, we are all wet with our children covering ourselves with whatever we have so that we can sleep,” she said, asking for emergency aid.
Macron got a helicopter tour of the damage and was to spend Thursday night on the far-flung French territory. After flying over the destruction, he headed to the hospital in Mamoudzou, Mayotte’s capital, to meet medical staff and patients.
Wearing a traditional Mayotte scarf on his white shirt and tie, sleeves rolled to the elbows, the French president listened to people asking for help. A member of the medical staff told him some people hadn’t had a drink of water for 48 hours.
Some residents also expressed agony at not knowing about those who have died or are still missing, partly because of the Muslim practice of burying the dead within 24 hours.
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“We’re dealing with open-air mass graves,” Mayotte lawmaker Estelle Youssoufa told reporters. “There are no rescuers, no one has come to recover the buried bodies.”
Some survivors and aid groups have described hasty burials and the stench of bodies.
Macron acknowledged that many who died hadn’t been reported. He said phone services will be repaired “in the coming days” so that people can report their missing loved ones.
French authorities have said at least 31 people died and more than 1,500 people were injured, more than 200 critically. But it’s feared hundreds or even thousands of people have died in total.
Abdou Houmadou, 27, said emergency aid was needed immediately, not Macron’s presence.
“Mr. President, what I’d like to tell you… is I think the spending you made from Paris to Mayotte would have been better spent to help the people,” he said.
Another resident, Ahamadi Mohammed, said Macron’s visit “is a good thing because he’ll be able to see by himself the damage.”
“I think that we’ll then get significant aid to try and get the island back on its feet,” the 58-year-old said.
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Macron’s office said four tons of food and medical aid, as well as additional rescuers, were aboard the president’s flight. A navy ship was due to arrive in Mayotte on Thursday with another 180 tons of aid and equipment, according to the French military.
People living in a large slum on the outskirts of Mamoudzou were some of the hardest hit by the cyclone. Many lost their houses, some lost friends.
Nassirou Hamidouni sheltered in his house when the cyclone hit.
His neighbor was killed when his house collapsed on him and his six children. Hamidouni and others dug through the rubble to reach them.
The 28-year-old father of five is now trying to rebuild his own house, which was also destroyed.
He believes the death toll is much higher than what’s officially being reported, given the severity of what he lived through.
“It was very hard,” he said.
Mayotte, located in the Indian Ocean between mainland Africa’s east coast and northern Madagascar, is France’s poorest territory.
The cyclone devastated entire neighborhoods and many people ignored the warnings, thinking the storm wouldn’t be so extreme.
Mayotte has more than 320,000 residents according to the French government. Most are Muslim and French authorities have estimated another 100,000 migrants live there.
Mayotte is the only part of the Comoros archipelago that voted to remain a part of France in a 1974 referendum.
Over the last decade, the French territory has seen a massive influx of migrants from the neighboring islands – the independent nation of Comoros, which is one of the world’s poorest countries.
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Google Maps helps solve murder mystery by capturing moment a person put suspected corpse into car in Spain
Google Maps has guided Spanish investigators to resolve a year-long murder mystery by capturing the moment a person stowed a suspected corpse into a car.
Police in the northern region of Castile and Leon began their probe in November 2023 when someone reported the disappearance of a male relative.
Officers arrested a woman who was the missing male’s partner and another man who was her ex-partner in Soria province on November 12, police said in a statement on Wednesday.
Investigators then raided the suspects’ homes and inspected their vehicles but also stumbled on an unexpected lead in the search for further clues.
These were “images in a location application” where they “detected a vehicle that may have been used during the course of the crime,” the statement said.
Spanish media circulated pictures of a screenshot of Google Maps’ Street View from October 2024 showing a person dumping an object covered in a white shroud into a car trunk in the village of Tajueco. It was the first time in 15 years that the car had been to the town of Tajueco, the BBC reported.
The images contributed to resolving the case, though they were not “decisive,” police said.
Officials said another photo sequence shows the blurred silhouette of someone transporting a large white bundle in a wheelbarrow, the BBC reported.
The central government’s representative in Soria, Miguel Latorre, told public broadcaster RTVE the person “can presumably be” considered the culprit.
Police said a severely decomposed human torso believed to belong to the victim had been found this month in a cemetery in Soria province. El Pais daily reported that he was a 33-year-old Cuban.
A judge has ordered the suspects into custody and the investigation remains open.
This marks at least the second time that Google technology has helped crack a cold case. In 2019, the remains of a man missing for 22 years were finally found thanks to someone who zoomed in on his former Florida neighborhood with Google satellite images and noticed a car submerged in a lake.
