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

By Jeanne Sahadi, CNN

(CNN) — 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.

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.

Tip of the week: Got debt? Save for emergencies

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.)

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