Budgeting Spreadsheet : In the early days, bank saving accounts were originally created as the only place to invest your cash for a nominal saving account interest return.  However, the bank saving account interest is usually below the inflation or taxation rates which is not attractive to a customer who had large sum of cash.  Such customer naturally would look for other investment options which pay higher returns.

Banks realizing that they may loose such customers, came up with another option that offer more attractive interest rates to the customers.  That started what today known as the investment accounts or investment saving accounts.  Such accounts have overtaken the standard saving accounts in popularity especially for customers who have a lot of cash.

Investment Accounts 

Opening an investment account requires larger minimum balances because interest rates are tiered and higher balances can earn more.  For instance, if you had $5,000 to invest, you would have earned between at least 2% on an investment account over a standard saving account.

The trade off for the higher interest rates is that you must leave your deposits in the investment account for fixed longer period. If you withdraw the deposits before the expiry of the said periods, you will loose the interest earned.

Investment accounts are more restrictive than the standard saving accounts. You do not have the convenient of accessing your funds through an ATM.

The following summarized the advantages and disadvantages of an investment accounts :

Advantage :

1.  Ability to earn higher interest.

Disadvantages :

1.  Minimum withdrawals may be the rule.

2.  You may have to leave money in the account for a set period before any interest is paid.

3.  Transaction charges may be applicable.

4.  Minimum balanced needed fro higher interest rates.

Investment accounts have since evolved since the day it started. Today you can find various types of investment accounts such as online investment accounts, gold investment accounts, cpf investment accounts, offshore investment accounts, money market investment accounts and investment retirement accounts.