New smartphone app promises high interest rates on savings

Al Riddick is not a man who was born into money. He grew up in a tiny town in North Carolina, the son of two farmers who had grown up poor. “You can imagine what my grandparents taught my parents about money, which was being passed down to me, which wasn’t much,” Riddick said with a wide smile. But his family did teach him the value of hard work, and Riddick took it from there. By the time he and his wife were in their early 30s, they were debt-free. Before they turned 40, the couple managed to accumulate $1 million in savings and assets. Now Riddick, 42, teaches others how to manage their money more successfully through his business Game Time Budgeting, LLC, located in Springdale. “We have this little rule in the Riddick household,” he said. “We call it becoming broke on purpose and not by accident. We believe in giving every dollar that flows through our household purpose and direction so it does not misbehave.” That doesn’t mean Riddick and his wife, Lesia, don’t treat themselves or contribute to the causes they care about. They budget for two vacations each year and for charitable donations, too. The key, Riddick said, is discipline and deciding what expenses really matter to you and your family. Is it really possible to have a saving account that earns up to 4 percent interest? That's the claim of startup banking app Beam.