Where I live, I can join the local county credit union. I don’t need to do anything but prove that I’m a resident.

Every once in a while, I think about joining a credit union. I started a new job with a large company and I checked out my credit union options. Honestly, there weren’t very many through my company. The strange irony being, that there are about 30 credit unions across the nation that were founded by company employees back in the day. But none of the existing ones are convenient to me.

While perusing the Arlington VA Credit Union website, I see they have 12 month CD’s still paying out 4% APY, with an option to bump up. I’m thinking about it since ING Direct is only paying 3.4%. I still keep about $1200 in CD’s at ING at 5.0% APY or slightly better, but those are about to expire in the next few months without a great rate available. These CD’s form the core of my emergency fund, which I’ve let dwindle and haven’t built back up.

I know I should be constantly building back my savings. But right now the plan is to save by spending. I’m tossing lots of money at my credit cards since the interest rate is much higher than any savings rate I can find. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t shop around for these small CD’s I have since I have no intention of cashing them out to leave myself with nothing to fall back upon.