• Guaranteed interest rate returns.
• Take advantage of stock market gains without any exposure to losses.

Saving your money in a safe place may seem like an obvious priority. Why would anyone want to put savings somewhere unsafe? But the fact remains that a large percentage of popular saving and investing vehicles provide no guarantee of earnings, nor even assurance that the original capital will be preserved. Those that do make such a guarantee are considered ultra secure, but the price of low risk is, invariably, low returns. There is a time and place in every household where surplus cash needs to be preserved for a while.

U.S. securities are most secure
A T-bill, or Treasury bill, is a short-term security issued by the U.S. Treasury, typically at a minimum of $1,000 for periods ranging from 3 to 12 months. T-bills initially are issued at a discount, and the investor receives the full value - also known as "par value" - at the end of the agreed term. A 12-month T-bill, for example, could cost $9,375. At the end of a year, the investor might receive $10,000, with the $625 difference reflecting interest earnings.

U.S. government agency securities are securities issued by the U.S. government other than T-bills, notes, and bonds. Commercial paper is a short-term, promissory note issued by corporations for terms ranging from 1 to 270 days. The worth of commercial paper can differ considerably from corporation to corporation.

Money market mutual fund can combine them all
One can purchase a package of all the above securities in the form of a money market mutual fund (MMMF). There are many kinds of mutual funds, but all operate as large pools of cash managed by an investment company. A fund manager is a specialist assigned to use the cash to purchase specific types of investments. Very few mutual funds are low risk, and the types of investments accumulated within the mutual fund are determined by the degree of risk investors are willing to bear. MMMFs, designed as much to preserve the capital investment as they are to yield income, are comparatively low risk. A typical MMMF will include any combination of high-quality, short-term securities like T-Bills, commercial paper, or certificates of deposit.