Want a high return on your savings without taking a lot of risk? Here’s how

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally featured in the Savings Challenge newsletter, which you can sign up for here . The weekly newsletter offers readers savings tips, expert answers to your questions and weekly challenges to help boost savings.

When you’ve spent time amassing savings for your near- and medium-term goals, it’s reasonable to want the best return on your money with little risk of losing your principal. Exactly how you can get that is the question.

Douglas Boneparth, certified financial expert and cofounder of Bone Fide Wealth, offers a few good suggestions in this week’s Ask the Expert for CNN’s Savings Challenge.

A reader from Arizona asks : “How/Where can I get a higher return than 4% without super high risk?”

DOUG: Let’s do the good news first. You don’t have to choose between earning next to nothing in a savings account or riding the volatility rollercoaster in the stock market.

Here’s where I’d look:

Dividend-paying stocks or ETFs of blue-chip companies: These can yield 3% to 5%-plus annually, with the potential for price appreciation on top of that. Remember, they carry market risk and their share price can drop in a bad economy, but quality dividend payers tend to be among the more stable equity holdings out there.

Bond ladders: Instead of a single bond fund, a ladder of individual Treasuries or investment-grade corporate bonds locks in yields with known maturity dates. Hold to maturity, and you’re largely insulated from interest-rate swings.

Balanced funds: These funds, which typically have a 60/40 or 70/30 stocks-to-bonds portfolio have historically returned 5% to 7% annually over long periods, with meaningfully lower volatility than going all-in on stocks. This is a classic middle ground for moderate-risk investors.

CNN Photo Illustration/Photograph by Sylvie Rosokoff

Here’s the thing about risk. The longer you can leave money alone without needing it, the more of it you can comfortably absorb and the higher your potential return. Be sure to match your time horizon to the right strategy so you don’t end up disappointed.

Have your own savings question for Doug? Please send it to savingschallenge@cnn.com. You can sign up for the weekly newsletter here.

You may think you shouldn’t save in earnest until your debts are paid off. But you may never get out of debt that way.

Try to set aside three months or more of living expenses in a high-yield savings account. That emergency fund could prevent you from incurring future debt if you lose your job or get hit with unexpected costs.

If your debt is unmanageable, check with the National Foundation for Credit Counseling to see if a debt management plan might help. Under a DMP, the agency negotiates lower payments and lower interest rates with your creditors. You then send a single payment to NFCC every month, which then sends the agreed-upon amounts to your creditors. But a portion also can be automatically routed into an online savings account for you.

“Instead of finishing a debt payoff plan with zero cash on hand, clients walk away completely debt-free and with a dedicated emergency fund to prevent them from falling back into credit card debt,” said Bruce McClary, a senior vice president at NFCC.

( Note: These plans typically involve a start-up fee of about $35 on average, and then a monthly maintenance fee averaging the same amount, McClary said. You also will not be allowed to use credit cards until your debt is paid off.)

CNN图片插图/Adobe Stock

编者按：本文最初刊登于“储蓄挑战”电子报，您可在此处订阅。该电子报每周为读者提供储蓄技巧、专家解答疑问以及每周挑战，帮助您提高储蓄效率。

当你花费时间积累储蓄以实现近期和中期目标后，自然希望获得最佳投资回报，同时尽可能降低本金损失的风险。问题在于，究竟该如何实现这一点。

注册金融专家、Bone Fide Wealth 联合创始人道格拉斯·博内帕斯在本周 CNN 储蓄挑战赛的“专家问答”环节中提出了一些很好的建议。

一位来自亚利桑那州的读者问道：“如何/在哪里可以获得高于 4% 的回报，同时又不会承担极高的风险？”

道格：我们先来说说好消息。你不必在储蓄账户里几乎没有收益和在股市里经历剧烈波动之间做出选择。

我会从这里入手：

蓝筹股或蓝筹ETF的派息股票：这些股票每年可带来3%至5%以上的收益，并且还有价格上涨的潜力。请记住，它们也存在市场风险，在经济不景气时股价可能会下跌，但优质的派息股票往往是市场上较为稳定的股票投资之一。

债券阶梯策略：与其投资单一债券基金，不如构建一个由多只国债或投资级公司债券组成的阶梯，锁定收益率并确定到期日。持有至到期日，就能很大程度上免受利率波动的影响。

平衡型基金：这类基金通常采用60/40或70/30的股票/债券投资组合，长期历史年化收益率在5%至7%之间，且波动性远低于全部投资股票的基金。对于中等风险投资者而言，这是一种经典的折中投资选择。

CNN图片插图/摄影：Sylvie Rosokoff

关于风险，关键在于：资金闲置时间越长，你能承受的风险就越大，潜在回报也就越高。务必根据你的投资期限选择合适的策略，以免最终失望。

您有关于储蓄的问题想问道格吗？请发送邮件至 savingschallenge@cnn.com。您可以在这里订阅每周新闻简报。

你可能认为在还清债务之前不应该认真储蓄。但那样你可能永远无法摆脱债务。

尽量在收益较高的储蓄账户中存入至少三个月的生活费。这笔应急资金可以在你失业或遭遇意外开支时，避免你背负债务。

如果您的债务难以偿还，请咨询美国国家信用咨询基金会 (National Foundation for Credit Counseling, NFCC)，看看债务管理计划 (DMP) 是否能帮到您。在 DMP 计划下，该机构会与您的债权人协商降低每月还款额和利率。之后，您每月只需向 NFCC 支付一笔款项，NFCC 会将约定的金额转给您的债权人。此外，您还可以选择将部分款项自动转入您的网上储蓄账户。

NFCC 高级副总裁 Bruce McClary 表示：“客户完成债务偿还计划后，不仅不会身无分文，还能完全摆脱债务，并拥有专门的应急基金，防止他们再次陷入信用卡债务。”

（注：麦克拉里表示，这些计划通常需要支付平均约 35 美元的启动费，然后每月支付平均相同金额的维护费。此外，在还清债务之前，您将无法使用信用卡。）