When I was five-years-old, I found my first shiny quarter on a walk, sticking out of the crack of a concrete sidewalk crowded with weeds. Rubbing the lustrous coin between my fingers, I stashed it in my crammed sweatpants along with my other five-year-old possessions: a peculiarly shaped pebble, dirty tissues, and week-old bread crumbs. When I got back home, I jammed my hands back into my unkempt pockets, seeking for my find of the day. To my dismay, all I found were crusty bread crumbs and a hole in my pocket the size of a large coin. Stunned that I had lost coin I had found just hours ago, I begged my parents to buy my a piggy bank so I could store any wandering coins I found.

My mom took me to Toys R Us where both me and my younger brother picked out long, plastic crayon-shaped piggy banks almost as tall as we were. From then on, I saved all my scrap coins and crumpled one-dollar bills inside the contraption. Up until the beginning of high school, all my money was in cash inside the crayon stuffed deep inside my messy closet. My trusty crayon bank was the sole protector of my assets until I finally opened up my first bank account.

The truth is, saving money as a teenager is hard. You don’t have much money, and when you do, you don’t know where to put it. When I got my first legitimate job as a teacher’s assistant at a local tutoring center, my mom took me to Bank of America where she helped me open my first joint checking account. While I wasn’t happy that my mother had access to all my money, a whopping $200, it would suffice for now. Along with my bank account, I received my first debit card, a blood red thin piece of plastic and a wonderful alternative to cash bills and coins that would easily slip through the holes in my pockets. However, with a new bank account came responsibilities. I was told not to play around with checks, and to beware of over-withdrawal. Being the kid that didn’t spend money anyway, it was not a big problem for me.

By the time I turned 18, I had a healthy balance of funds stored into my checking account. However, as I grew older, I became more loose with the money I was spending. To protect myself from buying another pair of jeans to add to my collection, I opened my own savings account at Bank of America through their online website. Fortunately, the Bank of America Mobile App makes it easy it view all your money in one location, allowing me to maintain both my checking and savings account easily. Whenever a paycheck or sum of money came in, I would immediately store it into my savings account where it was protected from my unhealthy addiction for video games and clothes.

Although I kept this savings account throughout high school, one downside of it was the horrible interest rates from the institution. I was gaining a measly 0.03% on my savings, down from the national average of 0.09%. This now leads to today. I have decided I want to put my savings in a high-yield savings account. A high-yield savings account offers the same security as a typical savings account, but in contrast, has high interest rates which will yield a much higher return for money just sitting in an account. I will make a decision in the coming month and move my money into a new account!