House profit saving

[virginia]

I'm putting my home on the market in the next few weeks....
I stand to make about 125-140k on the property, and will just be putting the money away for the next year and a half or so. I'm in the military and will be deploying in a few months, and will be gone for a year, so there's no use to buy a place until I get back.
I'd appreciate your comments about what I should do with this money. The main thing is - I'm not willing to lose any principal on this money - I want to have the full amount to buy a place when I get back.
Is a CD as good as anything? I saw the Treasury Bills aren't really much higher than CD's. I don't really know where else to put it. I'm thinking there are other places that I can put it, since it's a larger amount of money.
Any ideas?

 

[wabmester]

Yes, an 18-month CD would do the trick. Your only concern might be that the FDIC will only insure $100K per account. You can always put in multiple banks to get the full amount insured. Check bankrate.com for rates -- you should be able to get around 5%.

 

[brewer12345]

Allternatively, you could just plunk the oney in the Vanguard money market fund. Yields over 4% and rising, virtually no risk, and instant liquidity should you need it.

 

[saluki9]

Allternatively, you could just plunk the oney in the Vanguard money market fund. Yields over 4% and rising, virtually no risk, and instant liquidity should you need it.

+1

Vanguard Prime MM is yielding 4.47% today with daily liquidity. Hard to beat that

 

[SLC Tortfeasor]

Emigrant Direct savings accounts are now paying 4.5%.

 

[virginia]

Thanks guys - I may actually go with one of the emigrant direct savings accounts.

 

[SC]

If you go with Emigrant, you might also want to look at their credit card. If you have > $10K in their savings account, the card pays 1.4% cash back on all purchases with no upper limit.

SC

 

[aimhigh]

don't forget your military tax breaks

"Taxpayers may exclude gain on a home sale, provided they have owned and used the home as a principal residence for two of the five years before the sale." you should be able to hold onto these gains without paying taxes until you return from overseas if I read everything correctly.

 

[virginia]

Yes I found out about the tax break - but it gets better - I was told by the tax pros on post that if you're military, it's the past 2 out of 15! Mine's been the past 2 out of 5, so no big deal, but I'm very happy to know that I won't have to pay that capital gains tax. that's a bundle of saving right there.