Using stable short-term, tax-free municipal bond funds to beat the bank?
Banks' savings interest is ridiculous, has always been, compared to other investment options. But there's a reason for that: its safe. You will get your money back, and the interest on it, as long as you're within the FDIC insurance limits. If you want to get more returns - you've got to take more risks. For example, that a locality you're borrowing money to will default. Has happened before, a whole county defaulted. But if you understand the risks - your calculations are correct. If your main goal is to avoid taxes, municipal bonds are a good strategy, it's not the best way to make more than 1-2% in gains.  And kudos for putting money back into the community.
It's not so much pros and cons as much as it is what are your savings goals? While it's best to start early to save money for retirement, you may have numerous short- to medium-term savings goals (school, down payment, etc). Here's a template you can consider. I would suggest that you open up an RRSP mutual fund or brokerage account and invest a certain amount that you feel free locking up for the next few decades and investing it in some sort of growth product (perhaps look at portfolios using the Couch Potato strategy). Then, also open up a TFSA mutual fund or brokerage account and use it to invest for medium-term goals (i.e. 5-10 years). Invest in products that will allow for some growth but with low chance of losing principle in that time frame. What I wouldn't do is open up a TFSA savings account and use it for day-to-day savings. The tax you save is negligible and you would need to keep track of deposits and withdrawals to ensure that you don't overcontribute for the tax year. Similarly, an RRSP savings account or GIC is far too conservative at your age, IMHO. Think of RRSP and TFSA as investment vehicles rather than accounts per se. Either type allows for you to invest in a vast array of products, including mutual funds, equities, some derivatives, gold, bonds, GICs, etc.  To conclude, my view is to use RRSP to invest for conventional retirement goals, and use the TFSA to invest for medium-term and early retirement goals. Short time horizon, small pot of money, and low appetite for risk?  That smells like low return situation to me. I guess it depends on how low your appetite for risk is, though.  You could open a brokerage account (free) and purchase $10K worth of a fully diversified ETF like VTI, optionally putting maybe 20% of it in a diversified bond ETF.  I consider that a reasonably conservative investment, but if you are of the mindset that you cannot tolerate a drop in your wealth, it's not going to work.  Plus if you don't have any other investments, this will be the thing that requires you to report capital gains to the IRS, and that paperwork is never fun. As an alternative, you have CD's, which will make you very little.  Or a high-ish interest rate electronic savings account like Capital one 360 or Emigrant Direct (there are probably newer ones now that outcompete even these).  Still, with anything in this paragraph you will be lucky to beat inflation.  The real interest rate was negative last time I checked, so every risk-free investment will lose money in purchasing power terms.  To beat inflation you will need to take on nonnegligible risk. yield on a Treasury bond increases This primarily happens when the government increases interest rates or there is too much money floating around and the government wants to suck out money from the economy, this is the first step not the other way around. The most recent case was Fed buying up bonds and hence releasing money in to the economy so companies and people start investing to push the economy on the growth path.  Banks normally base their interest rates on the Treasury bonds, which they use as a reference rate because of the probability of 0 default. As mortgage is a long term investment, so they follow the long duration bonds issued by the Fed. They than put a premium on the money lent out for taking that extra risk. So when the governments are trying to suck out money, there is a dearth of free flowing money and hence you pay more premium to borrow because supply is less demand is more, demand will eventually decrease but not in the short run. Why do banks increase the rates they loan money at when people sell bonds? Not people per se, but primarily the central bank in a country i.e. Fed in US. "While @JB's ""yes"" is correct, a few more points to consider: There is no tax penalty for withdrawing any time from a taxable investment, that is, one not using specific tax protections like 401k/IRA or ESA or HSA. But you do pay tax on any income or gain distributions you receive from a taxable investment in a fund (except interest on tax-exempt aka ""municipal"" bonds),  and any net capital gains you realize when selling (or technically redeeming for non-ETF funds). Just like you do for dividends and interest and gains on non-fund taxable investments. Many funds have a sales charge or ""load"" which means you will very likely lose money if you sell quickly typically within at least several months and usually a year or more, and even some no-load funds, to discourage rapid trading that makes their management more difficult (and costly), have a ""contingent sales charge"" if you sell after less than a stated period like 3 months or 6 months.  For funds that largely or entirely invest in equities or longer term bonds, the share value/price is practically certain to fluctuate up and down, and if you sell during a ""down"" period you will lose money; if ""liquid"" means you want to take out money anytime without waiting for the market to move, you might want funds focussing on short-term bonds, especially government bonds, and ""money market"" funds which hold only very short bonds (usually duration under 90 days), which have much more stable prices (but lower returns over the longer term)." There is no such animal. If you are looking to give up FDIC protection, investing in a short-term, high quality bond fund or a tax-free bond fund with short durations is a good way to balance safety vs. return. Make sure you buy funds -- buying individual bonds isn't appropriate for folks without a high net worth. Another option is savings bonds, but the yields on these is awful today. "Whats your point? Nothing you posted in that essay refutes what I said. Do you even know what TARP is? It's the Troubled Asset Relief Fund put into action to address the lack of liquidity on banks balance sheets, and it was paid back early after Goldman leaked it to the press and was paid at 6.2% interest taking place during the GFC moron. This is about your title in which you said that ""...financial firms that feed at the taxpayer trough."" You really have no idea what you're talking about, please don't vote." Taxing divident earnings hurts bank shareholders, customers, and qualitatively impacts the equities market for the worse because it  A) Lowers the incentive to hold an equity instrument over long and intermediate periods, incentivizes short term holdings creating a more chaoticly traded stock market with more pronounced crises occurring more frequently.  B) The resulting dead weight loss of long term equities investment constricts the capital available to banks and investment firms, limiting the services they can offer their customers, decreasing product yield and increasing borrowing costs.  C) The banks, having lost business in long term equities trading, then of course make less money and return less money to their shareholders.  No such things as a free lunch, my dude. Emergency funds are defined in terms of months of tightened-belt living -- that's according to the usual gurus such as Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey etc.   They aren't for short-term emergencies like a blown transmission.  Use other money for those.  Why?  People with bad financial habits have short-term emergencies all the time, and that emergency fund doesn't have a chance of lasting.  This is just their financial habits manifesting.  Here's what an emergency fund is for.    Scenario: big economic bubble bursts.  Stock market drops 50%.  Credit dries up.  This happened in 2007 by the way.  The dominoes start falling boom, boom, boom: I'm exaggerating a bit here, but a lot of people lived at least half this stuff in 2007-11.  Nothing starts those dominoes falling like lack of cash at a key moment.  That's what an emergency fund is all about - keeping things tight-normal for long enough to get back on your feet.  If you want to keep your emergency fund in something risky -- keep a lot more of it!