AboutJim Meadows Expertise I can respond to most questions concerning consumer and business relationships with US financial institutions. My expertise touches on deposit and loan issues and particularly on strategies to navigate through bank policies personell and practices. I have a degree in Economics, attended law school, Graduate Shool of Banking, and Commercial Lending and Compliance Schools.
Experience I have twenty years experience as a bank CEO. Most of those years were spent operating a bank focused primarly on serving consumer/retail needs. I helped pioneer deposit and loan products for low/moderate income individuals. I currently serve on multiple bank boards and am Chairman of a Commercial Bank in Atlanta.
Question Jim, my wife and I have IRA CD's,and since we are both over 72 we have been withdrawing the minimum each year as a part of our retirement income. What is the best way to know that we are getting the best interest rate each time one of these CD's matures? Should we wait until the actual maturity date to find out from the present bank, and then shop during the "10 day Grace Period", or should we shop prior to the maturity date and if so, how far ahead? We seem to have no luck in negotiating a higher rate with the banks that have the present CD's, and have to shop on every maturity date. Laddering sounds like too much trouble. Do you have any advice or suggestions on how to get the best interest rate without this hassle on each maturity date? Our experience has been that if we just take the automatic renewal rate on these CD's we lose several thousand dollars, so it pays us to shop even though it is a lot of trouble.
Thanks for your help,
Edward
Answer Edward, If you continue to leave your IRA in Cd's you will probably have to continue on a similar path of actively negotiating rates.I would suggest that you start well ahead of the maturity date. You might want to use a resource such as bankrate.com to compare rates. Jim
