Everyone should park the lion's share of their cash-on-hand in one of these online savings account. You can't beat their 4.0%+ yields. For the sake of comparison, a Bank of America savings account yields 0.5% annually. If you assume a 3.0% inflation rate, the money in your Bank of America savings account is effectively losing ~2.5% of its purchasing power each year. That's a bad deal folks! The higher yields offered by online savings accounts allow you to maintain the purchasing power of your money.

Below are the best online savings account deals. If you are interested in an ING Direct account email me at tops123@gmail.com. I'll reply with a link entitling you to a free $25 just for opening the account!

• Emigrant Direct
  Current Yield: 4.25%
  http://www.emigrantdirect.com/
• HSBC Direct
  Current Yield: 4.80% through 4/30/2006 (after which the yield will revert to a lower rate - my guess is around 4.00%)
  http://hsbcdirect.com/
• ING Direct
  Current Yield: 4.75% through 4/15/2006 (after which the yield will revert to 3.80%)
  http://home.ingdirect.com/
• PayPal
  Current Yield: 4.48%
  https://www.paypal.com/

I have an ING Direct account and a Paypal account. I keep rainy day funds in these accounts (equivalent to three months' expenses) and the rest in other investments. I'll touch on those later.