Bank of America is paying 0.01% on its standard savings account.
Park $10,000 there for a year and you'll earn about a dollar — less than a candy bar, and certainly less than the cost of the gas it takes to visit a branch.
Meanwhile, plenty of online banks and money market funds are offering yields north of 4%.
On that same $10,000, the gap is roughly $400 a year.
That's a car payment, a chunk of a grocery bill, or a decent weekend getaway — handed over for the privilege of keeping your money where it's always been.
The account was opened years ago, the statement gets ignored, and inertia does the rest.
A savings account paying almost nothing is one of the cheapest sources of funding a bank can get, and the customers who never move are the ones subsidizing the ones who do.
The pitch you'll hear is convenience — branches, ATMs, a familiar app.
But it's worth asking what that convenience actually costs.
If you're keeping a large emergency fund at 0.01% purely out of habit, you're paying for convenience with hundreds of dollars a year.
At some point the math stops being subtle.
Some of these accounts advertise higher rates, but only if you meet balance minimums, hit debit card transaction quotas, or enroll in specific programs.
Miss a requirement in a given month and the rate can collapse back toward zero.
Read the fine print before assuming the headline number applies to you.
A few practical moves: check the current rate on every savings account you hold, in writing, this week.
Compare it against what a federally insured online bank or money market fund is paying.
If the gap is wide, move the bulk of your cash — but keep enough at your current bank to avoid monthly fees and keep your direct deposit and bill-pay setup intact.
You don't have to close the account to stop overpaying.
Some banks cap how many withdrawals you can make per month, and moving money between institutions can take a few business days.
Don't drain an account you rely on for automatic payments without rerouting those first.
One more thing worth flagging: yields on savings accounts are not locked in.
When the Fed cuts rates, the high-yield offers tend to follow fairly quickly.
That's not a reason to stay at 0.01% — it's a reason to treat your cash like something you manage, not something you forget.
Check the rate periodically, and don't assume last year's best offer is still the best one.
The uncomfortable truth is that the biggest beneficiary of your loyalty isn't you.
A near-zero savings rate isn't a service — it's a business model, and it works best when customers don't look.
None of this is financial advice, and rates change constantly, so verify current numbers yourself before acting.
But the core point stands: if you haven't checked your savings rate in a year, you're probably leaving real money on the table.
Final Thoughts
That's not a scam — it's just the cost of not paying attention.