Luke Judge

If you’re reading about personal finance on the web or using any personal finance software, you’re probably being bombarded by offers for high yield savings accounts. Should you always chase the best savings account rates?

Yes and no. what are the benefits and drawbacks? and how do you decide?

When you’re first opening your account, by all means seek out the best savings account rates. Compare savings account rates as a first pass at choosing a bank. For a checking account, there are more likely to be factors other than rates that can sway your choice–for instance, branch location or banking policies on overdrafts or maintenance fees. But for a savings account interest rates are probably your biggest deciding factor.

To find the best savings account rates, consider online banks. Online banks are safe and frequently offer savings rates that are much higher than their bricks-and-mortar competition because their operating costs are typically lower. (That’s not always the case, of course–competitive rates can be offered by traditional bricks-and-mortar banks, but it’s worth seriously considering an online savings account.) This difference in savings account rates isn’t trivial. The spread between the highest savings rates on the market and an average rate can be many times the return.

If your current savings account is offering you pittance compared with the market leaders, switching to the high interest savings account seems pretty smart.

Don’t bounce your savings around all the time, though. Even the highest savings rates are low compared to long-term average investment returns on stocks or many bonds. So for most people, it’s not worth the time and hassle to run an exhaustive search on savings account rates every month.

It’s possible you can earn and save more money doing other things, like working an extra hour at your job, or planning a weekly menu to keep our grocery bills low.

But if you let your savings languish too long in a low-interest account, you’re passing up free money. So every so often it’s useful to seek out the best savings account rates. The schedule may be twice a year, once per quarter, or once a year–whatever you’re comfortable with.

If you have a large amount of cash savings (good for you!), you may get even better rates by opening a money market account or buying certificates of deposits (CDs). It depends on your goals for your money–how you want to access it and what you may need it for.

To get a high interest money market account, you may need a fairly large minimum opening deposit–possibly thousands of dollars. Concerned about security? a money market account is generally an FDIC-insured deposit account. It is not the same as a money market fund, which is an at-risk money market investment. If in doubt, verify with the bank if the funds are FDIC-insured.

Another good option is to buy a CD. these are investments that tie up your money for a fixed period of time but offer a guaranteed rate of return during that time. You’ll give up interest and, in some cases, part of your principal to penalties if you withdraw the money early. But if you’re saving for something long-term, CDs can be a great way to boost your savings rate while keeping your cash secure. Staggering your CDs in a CD ladder (in which you buy CDs with different maturity dates) can give you additional flexibility without tying up your funds into a single long-term CD. again, online banks may have better rates; the key is to shop around.

Remember, however, that even a low savings account rate on some amount of savings is better than the best savings account rates on no savings! keep putting money away on an automatic schedule, even if you’re not getting the best savings rate. Don’t use researching savings rates as an excuse to postpone actually building up your savings account.

Do compare savings account rates periodically, though, and move your savings to higher ground if you notice your interest rates sinking or staying stagnant too long.  And if you do decide to move your money, be sure to follow these instructions on how to switch your bank account to make sure you don’t miss anything.

Should You Always Chase the Best Savings Rates? was written by Sierra Black, a writer for SavingsAccounts.com, a website that allows you to compare savings account rates from over 300 banks, with rates updated daily.

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But Lee Brice is a storyteller whose Southern-as-sweet-tea hit “Love Like Crazy” is climbing the CMT Top 20. Raised in South Carolina, he is a big-voiced crooner on the cusp of contemporary country.

He will perform at Urban Cowboy in the Ocala Entertainment Complex on July 30 amid the buzz of his debut CD, also called “Love Like Crazy.” And he will be easy to spot: His calling card is backwards baseball cap.

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers

With the critically acclaimed, blues-heavy album, “Mojo,” as a musical calling card, the Gainesville-favorite-son rocker and band hit the Sunshine State on their current national tour with a Sept. 16 performance at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa — their sole Florida appearance.

Early dates on the tour have included such Petty standards as “I Won’t Back Down,” “Breakdown” and “American Girl” (of course) as well as several songs from the new album, including “First Flash of Freedom” and “Running Man’s Bible” along with “I Should Have Known It” and “Jefferson Jericho Blues” — both of which the band rolled out in a blistering performance on “Saturday Night Live” in May.

Happy Together Tour

This tour is, as you would guess, all about peace, love and Turtles.

The Turtles’ 1967 “Happy Together” remains a substantial part of mainstream pop culture, even surfacing in television commercials. This tour features Flo and Eddie of The Turtles. But it also taps the generational well for more familiar faces of the era: The Grass Roots, The Buckinghams, Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere and the Raiders and Micky Dolenz of — of course — The Monkees.

Dolenz has been on and off Broadway and, last year, was featured on CMT’s reality show “Gone Country,” in which he performed a solo-acoustic version of The Monkees’ “Last Train to Clarksville.”

The Happy Together Tour will stop at Jacksonville’s Florida Theatre on July 27 and Daytona Beach’s Peabody Auditorium on July 30.

Beth Nielsen Chapman

Even if you don’t know her name, you probably know some of Beth Nielsen Chapman’s songs — which include Faith Hill’s “This Kiss,” which Chapman co-wrote with songwriting partner Annie Roboff, as well as others recorded by Ronnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson and Bette Midler. On July 30, Chapman performs at the University Auditorium at Newell Drive and Union Road on the University of Florida campus in Gainesville. The concert closes out the UF Performing Arts series, “Chords of Color for a Cause,” which promotes cancer awareness through performances by cancer survivors. Chapman has faced breast cancer as well as the death of her husband by cancer, which was relayed by her song, “Sand and Water.”

Jack Johnson

Before there were arena tours and No. 1 CDs, Jack Johnson was a professional surfer making small films about surfing. The Hawaii resident needed cool grooves for his films, so he created them himself on the acoustic guitar. Soon, his songs about being “Better Together” and making “Banana Pancakes” crept through the college charts and into the mainstream.

A shy singer/songwriter who tends to avoid celebrity trappings, Johnson has seen his last two CDs debut at No. 1 on the album charts. They have been more somber and serious offerings, with this summer’s “To the Sea” honoring Johnson’s late father.

Five weeks on the charts, “To the Sea” remains in the Top 10.

Johnson stops at Orlando’s Amway Arena on Aug. 24 and Tampa’s Florida State Fairgrounds on Aug. 25.

Oh, what an odd summer-stage season it is.

In the gloom of sagging ticket sales, this summer’s concert season is all over the board. There are few dominant trends but several curious novelties. Retro rockers Meat Loaf, Ratt, Blue Oyster Cult and Foghat are on regional bills.

Cyndi Lauper is also on tour, but instead of having girlie fun, she’s singing the blues — Memphis-style.

As for screaming teens, “It Boy” Justin Bieber is out and about. The still-popular Jonas Brothers also will stop in Florida, although two out of three JoBros are no longer teens; one is now a married man.

Mellow chart-topper/surfer Jack Johnson and loose-lipped blues-popper John Mayer will make a few teens and their mothers swoon, as will multi-generation country twangers Toby Keith and Brad Paisley.

Former stadium staples are playing small clubs: Smashing Pumpkins, Public Enemy and Crowded House.

And four years after Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers played an emotional homecoming show in Gainesville that anchored the band’s Peter Bogdanovich-directed documentary, they breeze through Florida for one stop far away from their hallowed Hogtown.

All this plays out amid the season’s biggest news

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