All of a sudden the idea of having a "savings account" along side your "checking account," and buying "CDs" will make a whole lot more sense. The average savin

All of a sudden the idea of having a "savings account" along side your "checking account," and buying "CDs" will make a whole lot more sense. The average savings account interests are currently around 0.02% APY. Those kinds of numbers make savings accounts meaningless--people just use them as a second account to help their budgeting. CDs are not much better, at 2.5% for a 5-year. Compare that to 8% APY for savings accounts and 12% APY 5-year CDs in the 1980s, and you'll understand why they exist at all. People actually had a reason to chose interest-bearing savings accounts.