HYSA
BondBloxx USD High Yield Bond Sector Rotation ETF
stock NYSE ETF

Me and my spouse make about $150k gross together and we max it all out on one account right now. 401k with a 50% match up to 100%, Roth IRA, and am able to invest into some stocks/ESPP through work as well with some saving into a HYSA(sadly don’t have an HSA). Working towards starting a second Roth IRA as well for my spouse and if we get any raises we’re planning on investing into my after tax 401k because it has a mega back door Roth option. Try to live towards the cheaper side but don’t fully withhold from ourselves if we want to eat out or anything. live in a Mid to HCOL area(Dallas). It’s definitely way more than 15 percent obviously but we’re on the younger side so we’re saving way more aggressively to set ourselves up.

Risk is a relative term that is profoundly affected by both your choice of investment vehicle and your timeline. The only way to prepare yourself for investment is by understanding the true level of risk, and make decisions based on that.
If your timeline is greater than 10 years, for example, you have a 94% likelihood of positive returns if you buy the whole market using an S&P tracking ETF like VOO or total world VT.
If you need the money sooner, VOO without a mix of safe assets becomes less and less attractive. If you need lower risk due to a shorter horizon, mix in bonds and treasuries with VOO or VT. If you will need that money in less than five years, simply parking it in an HYSA, money market or CD becomes the better option.
You said you have this money to invest but didn’t mention whether there is already money working for you in a retirement account. If there isn’t, I echo the recommendation made in this thread that you get with an advisor to map out a strategy for maxing your retirement savings over the next couple decades. I recommend Planvision, as they have a set fee of a few hundred bucks and they don’t sell investment or insurance products and they will guide your investment strategy without taking control of it. There are similar firms listed on Rob Berger’s website.
I also strongly recommend the simple to read Bogleheads’ Guide to Investment.

Open a HYSA in the next 35 mins, trust me bro

Why sgov instead of just a HYSA

What is your goal with the 100K? Retirement? Home purchase? College costs? Your goals for this money will largely inform what you should do with it, anything from keeping it in a HYSA to aggressively investing it all, depending on what “role” you assign to it.

Been thinking about this lately, since I have a large down payment I'm not going to use anytime soon sitting in a HYSA. Anyone else in this situation? I'm slowly moved some into SPY DCAing

Well, it's not like I don't have an emergency fund, and yes it is in cash..
But too much of a good thing is always a possibility..
I also have VOO and some boring individual stocks like ko in a taxable fund, that I also rely on for contingencies. Could it drop 1000% or more (I've really lost count over 2 decades), the moment I needed it, meaning maintaining it all in a HYSA being the better choice?
That's kinda far fetched...
I get it, Dave Ramsey and everyone drills in the need for an emergency fund. They are not entirely wrong, but everything can be overdone and life is a series of trade-offs.. boiling things down to "full stop" conclusions is simplistic.

https://preview.redd.it/86re3ih19b2h1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ab7bcac1a860c3eba2769c5dcf26c5f5bb24a9b0

Hope you didn’t completely shit your pants and sell yesterday after all the hand-wringing.
Now that it’s up where you started, you need to evaluate if you are truly cut out for this. There is zero guarantee in the market. You could lose money. You can make money.
Dumping 100k in one chunk was ballsy. At this point you can make a call to get out and put it back into a HYSA and relax or commit here and enjoy the ride.

> I try to keep around 10k min in my bank account
Bruh what? You can make payments directly from a HYSA.

I have 85k on SGOV ( my HYSA )— but we are moving in about 11 months so that is my reasoning

I'm 54 and about 5 years from retirement and, aside from cash/HYSA, I'm almost 100% in SP500 index. It depends on your risk tolerance. If the market crashes before I plan to retire I will just work a few more years.

Yes it is, most, nearly all of the time...
But there's a time for everything.. in early 2008 going all in on a HYSA or bonds would have made you the smartest person in the room..
And on it goes, this world of our's.

It also moves, likely up, which the Amex HYSA likely won’t asfaik with Amex

With your level of family support, and given that you mentioned later that you won’t actually be needing or using that $4k in the coming years, then VT or VTI/VXUS is a great place to put 100% of that money now and just leave it there for many years.
If you have any doubt about your family’s support or aren’t sure on any level that you might need that $4k in the next couple of years, don’t invest and just safely park it in an HYSA. Yes that $4k can easily grow in VT to over $100k by the time you retire, but that’s not as important as making sure your basic needs are covered in the immediate future. If your basic expenses are covered, by all means throw as much as you can at VT.
Read the Boglehead’s Guide to Investing and you’ll get all the background you need to start out with broad index ETFs.

In _The Simple Path to Wealth_, by JL Collins, he advocates for only the S&P 500, but I think it's mostly for simplicity. I thought I read that he has recently started advocating for adding an international fund.
Only the S&P 500 is not diversified as it's only about 50% of the entire market, and includes uncompensated risk since it's entirely anchored to the US and the US Dollar. I'm an advocate of VT (or VTI+VXUS in a taxable account with significant assets). This is maximally diversified, owing 98% of public equities worldwide, and not tied to a single country or currency. The devaluation of the US Dollar the past couple of years has resulted in significant international outperformance.
Further, if you have a significant amount of discretionary expenses, _and are truly willing to reduce or eliminate them in down-market years_, you can get by with 3 years of bonds. Otherwise you should probably target 5-8 years of bonds. And I'm not a fan of BND/BNDX/BNDW because they carry significant exposure to long-term bonds. Rates of long-term bonds are still too low for me to be comfortable with the price risk. Use short-term and intermediate-term bond funds instead. Keep very little cash, not more than a free month's worth, and make sure it's always in a MMF or HYSA.

Don't invest money you need in 7 months. Full stop. The stock market can drop 20–30% in any given 6-month window; it happened in early 2025. If your car fund drops 25% in October, you either buy a worse car or wait another year. The "pennies" feeling is a psychological trap, not a math problem. At 4.5% APY, $5,000 earns around $150–175 before December. That's not life-changing but it's free money with zero risk, and it's not nothing at 19.
The HYSA is the right call for this specific goal. Where people go wrong is picking a bad HYSA — some of the big banks advertise "high yield" but are paying 0.5% dressed up with marketing. Make sure you're actually in one earning 4%+. There's a current comparison of rates here if you want to check yours: [wealthwiredaily.com/blog/best-high-yield-savings-accounts-2026](http://wealthwiredaily.com/blog/best-high-yield-savings-accounts-2026)
Once you buy the car in December, the money you were putting toward savings each month THAT's what you invest, because it has a long time horizon. At 19 with no immediate need for the money, index funds beat everything. But short-term goals stay in cash.

I'm aware of this! But I'm not talking about short term CDs/HYSA but intermediate term bonds and CDs.
A 5 year CD is not cash but equivalent to an intermediate turn bond. So I'm not talking about short term yields. If the central bank cuts rates, I'm still on the higher interest rate for years to come and thus 'won'. On a CD ladder the lower interest rates will be slowly bought in, but the same happens on bond funds. The only difference is that bonds *temporarily* increase in nominal value.
Long term, a bond fund will - just as a CD ladder - turn over into the current interest rate climate and, in the long run, return according to their underlying yield. Nominal gains due to interest rate fluctuations are in theory zero on time horizons longer than the underlying duration.
The only situation in which I see a bond fund being superior is to rebalance quickly during a market correction where bond funds are liquid and get interest rate temporary returns. But this still creates tax-drag and Europeans pay for that opportunity with lower yields on bonds compared to equivalent CDs.

You should not be investing if $1000 is considered your life savings. Put it in a HYSA and save more.

yeah HYSA is fine for emergency funds imo. I’d just keep a small buffer in checking too, since transfers can take a day or two and emergencies don’t always wait lol

There's no reason to close the accounts. If there's a local branch, retain access so you can handle physical cash transactions and certified checks.
However, I wouldn't use them for your cash reserve or any general cash savings due to the non-existent interest rate. Fidelity CMA or any HYSA option is better for that.
The credit card 2% is nice, but not particularly unique. Capital One has the SavorOne card with 3% back on all dining and groceries, which is excellent for anyone but especially a younger person who is constantly using DoorDash and Starbucks. The Fidelity Rewards (Elan) card is also 2% back on everything. And many others.
The credit card interest rate is definitely good, but it shouldn't really factor into your decision, because you should never, ever carry a balance. Pay your statement balance every month in full using an autopay option.