Available Funds
You’re at the store and need to buy wine (yes, need...it’s been a long day), but you’re not sure how much cash you have in your checking account. You log into your account to see two balances: an available balance (or available funds) of $400, and a current balance of $600. Which do you rely on?
The answer is available funds. Your available funds reflect the money you can blow at this very moment in time. It’s there, and ready to be spent. Available funds are seen in real time. They change every time your latest debit hits the bank and reflect these transactions throughout the day.
Your current funds reflect yesterday’s balance at the end of the day. So if you've got your eye on a $450 bottle of vino, best downgrade for today.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is a Money Market Fund?80 Views
finance a la shmoop. what is a money market fund? isn't it a strange concept
to think about going to a market to buy money? [man walks through grocery store]
well yeah it's strange but the practice exists and it's a huge multi trillion
dollar market today. the key word here is money and not investment. why such a big
diff? well because the notion of investing implies duration. that is when
you invest in a nice fixer-upper home or a tractor distribution company or shares
in a fat dividend-paying bank you're investing for presumably a long time [people stand in line]
like years maybe decades maybe centuries if you can find the right miracle pill.
but here we're talking about money like the stuff you can buy candy with. so it's
short term not long and a money market fund basically comprises many series of
pretty safe bonds that are all coming due in the next 30 to 90 days. sometimes [pie chart]
longer than that sometimes shorter but generally in the very near future. so why
would you care about a money market fund? well because it pays you slightly more
interest on your money than say a bank checking account. and lots of people in
corporations need cash just sitting around to pay their bills, so there are
tons of money market funds out there available and that's the gist of a money
market fund. we're sure you'll have plenty of experience with them by the
time you hit your sixth hundredth birthday day [people cheer and hold birthday cake]
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