Best Savings Accounts in Canada 2022 Top 5 High Interest Savings Accounts

Are you saving your money? I'll give you $10, I got to eat beans the rest of the week. No, you ain't getting no $10 over here. Where do you keep your savings? In today's video, I go over my top five picks for savings accounts in Canada. So if you want to know where to put your savings, make sure you watch this video till the end. Why do you need to put your money in a savings account? To protect it. Don't keep your money in a shoebox under your bed. Anything could happen to your money from a fire to being robbed or mice deciding they want to make a nest out of your money and chew it up. You may also want to keep your savings separate from your checking account so you don't spend your savings and you can track them better. But the biggest reason why you should keep your money in a savings account is so you can earn interest. Your money is slowly losing its value due to inflation. The average annual inflation rate in Canada is about 2%, which means goods and services will be 2% more expensive every year. So your $100 will only buy $98 worth of groceries next year and so on. So we should use high interest savings accounts to keep up with inflation. Why don't you just invest your savings and get a much higher return? Investing should be long term and savings should be short term. If you want to buy a house next year, you wouldn't invest what you have saved because anything could happen to the market and you may not have enough time to recover. So you should keep any short term goals in a savings account. Also, it's good to have a certain percentage of your investment portfolio in cash. Why? Well, there's many reasons. To reduce your risks. To take advantage of buying opportunities. Or maybe you're saving for a different investment opportunity like real estate or business. Savings accounts are also a perfect place for your emergency funds. They are liquid enough to get easy access to them when you need them and you can still earn interest on them. Now, before we get into the list, if you're new here, my name is Charlie Wayne and on this channel, I like to talk about anything that can improve your personal finances, especially for Canadians. So if that interests you, hit the red subscribe button and the bell icon to get notified when a new video comes out. Spoiler alert. None of the big banks have made this list and I have no clue why. This list only consists of online-only institutions. Number one, Achieva Financial's Daily Interest Savings Account. The only credit union on this list, their current interest rate is 1.5%. There's no minimum balance required, no monthly account fees to worry about and you get one free withdrawal per month. But be aware that there's a lot of other fees you can run into. So this account is strictly for saving. Other than the interest rate, what else do I like about this account? The Green for Green Program. You get paid $1 per month when you choose to get your documents electronically. Who doesn't like free money? Also, the Referral Petal Program. You can earn $100 per year when you successfully referred four friends. $25 per friend. And if you find someone else's referral code, you can earn yourself a $25 sign-up bonus. So you could possibly earn yourself $137 your first year. On top of that, the interest earned on your balance. Also, Achieva has competitive TFSA and RRSP rates and some of the highest GIC rates. But remember that GICs are locked in and they'll be no good for an emergency fund. Number two, Tangerine Bank's Savings Account. Their current interest rate is 0.15%. Wait, hold up. Hear me out first. This rate is still three times more than your brick and mortar bank. No minimum balance, no monthly fees, no withdrawal fees. Currently, they have a promotion where you can earn 2.5% for the first five months. This rate is great for those high interest rate chasers. Use Tangerine for five months and then move on to the next highest promo rate. Also, Tangerine offers promo rates for existing customers. So when their promo is over, transfer from another bank back to Tangerine when another promo starts. On top of this, Tangerine has a referral program. You can get $50 for each successful referral up to $150 a year. And that means you can use someone else's code to earn $50 when you sign up. Tangerine also offers one of my favorite checking accounts and they have a set of good credit cards. Number three, Wealthsimple Cash. Currently, Wealthsimple Cash offers an interest rate of 0.9%. This rate may not be as high as others on this list, but this is not your ordinary high interest savings account. Wealthsimple Cash is a hybrid spending and savings account. It's technically a reloadable prepaid visa account, but it kind of works like a checking account that can earn high interest. There's no monthly fees, no withdrawal fees, no foreign exchange fees, and they even have ATM reimbursements. This is also the only account on this list that comes with a card. Now you can get debit cards with most of the options on this list, but that requires opening up a checking account along with your savings account. So what's the con about this account? Well, it's not fully out yet. Since the whole pandemic thing, a lot of companies have delayed upcoming features and new products. Wealthsimple Cash is currently featuring just the saving functions of the account. So you can deposit your money there and still earn 0.9% interest, but all the spending features are on hold. This account can be perfect for someone that wants the quickest access to your savings like in an emergency. But having your savings so accessible can be a bad thing too. This account is also for someone with high monthly spending. Instead of your money sitting in a checking account earning nothing till it gets used, why not go with Wealthsimple Cash and earn 0.9%? Number four, Motive Financial's Savvy Savings Account. This high interest savings account has a current interest rate of 1.75%. This is the highest interest rate on this list, but it's not the highest in Canada at the moment. That title belongs to Canadian Tire Bank with 1.8% interest. But I believe that their interest rate will eventually drop lower than the Savvy Savings Account. What I like about the Savvy Savings Account is that their interest rate has been constantly one of the highest interest rates in Canada, if not the highest interest rate in Canada. There is no minimum balance required, free deposits, unlimited transfers between Motive accounts, and free ATM withdrawals at the Exchange Network ATMs. What's the downsides of this account? Additional withdrawals cost $5 per. You will also need to pay $1 per e-transfer. And if you are over the two free withdrawals, then you have to add another $5 to the $1 e-transfer. This account is not for someone that's always dipping into their savings account. Because of their withdrawal fees, you need to be a very disciplined saver. And if you are a disciplined saver, you should take advantage of this interest rate. Motive Financial also offers a TFSA account with a current interest rate of 1.75%, currently one of the highest in Canada. If you're not aware, any interest earned in a high interest savings account is taxable at the same marginal rate as any general income. To avoid taxes on interest, you can open up a TFSA like the one Motive offers. But consider that you only have a certain amount of contribution room, so you should save that room for investing. There's lots of rules to a TFSA account, so using them for emergency funds or your short-term goals isn't recommended. Now for two runner-ups that didn't make this list, Motive Bank's high interest savings account and Alternibank's high interest e-savings account. Their interest rates aren't the highest, but they are solid banks and they have many other great products. I've done separate reviews for most of the accounts on this list, so if you want to learn more about them, check out the video description below. Now before we get into my top pick for a savings account, can I get you to hit the like button? Doing so will tell YouTube to show this video to more people. Number 5, you probably already guessed it, EQ Bank's savings plus account, with a current interest rate of 1.70%. Oh, and if any of these rates change, I will update them in the video description. EQ Bank's savings plus account is currently one of the highest interest rates in Canada. Since inception, the interest rate of the savings plus account has been among the highest in Canada. I can't say the same thing about Canadian Tire's savings account. The savings plus account doesn't require a minimum balance. They have zero everyday banking fees, free transfers, free e-transfers, free bill payments, and low fees on international money transfers. This makes this savings account perfect for any type of savings, from short-term goals to emergency funds to holding cash in your investment portfolio. This account is also for any type of saver. With the flexibility that EQ offers, you can transfer money in and out and not worry about fees. Even cut out the middleman and pay a bill directly from your savings account. One more feature I should mention is that currently EQ Bank has a referral program where you can earn a maximum of $500. So if you have friends that want to save money, you can make yourself some money. Now the account itself doesn't have many flaws compared to other online-only accounts. One being you can only hold a maximum of $200,000 in your account. If you have $200,000 in cash, well good for you. There is a few cons with EQ Bank itself. For one, they don't offer a checking account, so no access to a debit card. And two, they don't offer TFSA or RRSP accounts. But like I already said, you should save your TFSA for your investments. For more information on EQ Bank, click this link up here. And if you're interested in signing up with EQ Bank, look for the link in the video description below. My final thoughts, everyone has different financial circumstances, financial goals, and financial needs. That's why it's called personal finances. So depending on what you're looking for, one of these accounts should fit your needs. Currently, I keep my three to six months of living expenses in EQ Bank's Savings Plus account. I can easily e-transfer or EFT transfer my savings to my checking account whenever I need it. And while sitting there, it's earning one of the best interest rates out there. But ultimately, you decide where to keep your hard-earned dollars at. I just show you your options. Share with us in the comment section below where you currently keep your savings at. And after watching this video, do you plan to change that? Thanks for watching. Until next time, keep making money moves. Peace.