I haven’t had a savings account since I was 16, I think. Not a traditional bank one anyway. ING Direct Orange Savings account has always had an APR that’s about 4 times greater than a traditional savings account. APR was never the main issue though. Unlike checking accounts, ING is not tied to any specific bank monopoly in any particular city. While I’ve changed checking accounts several times in the last few years, due to relocation & bank convenience, I’ve had an Orange Savings Account through them all (sure, the majority of the time it’s been hovering around zero).
Transitioning to a working stiff however, allows for a little more financial freedom. A high APR savings account is an easy way to stash some money, where it can earn more than pennies a year. Surely a real working stiff has more advanced techniques of making their money work for them, and some day I’ll take a look at those.
In the meantime, this new savings account from Bank of America caught my eye. It’s called Keep the Change. You make purchases as usual with your bank card but Bank of America rounds up to the nearest dollar and puts the difference into your savings. Sounds like a simple way to put some spare change aside. This is the part that really makes me interested:
“For the first three months, we’ll match your Keep the Change savings at 100%. That means for every Keep the Change transfer, we’ll contribute the same amount to your Bank of America savings account… and we will match 5% thereafter.”
You can’t pick & choose what transactions will be rounded up, they all are - but if at the end of the day those roundups overdraw your account, they will not transfer your change to a savings.
After all this I just read some more fine print: “The matching funds will be credited to your savings account annually”. Damn, I knew there was something I was overlooking. Still sounds pretty good though, I imagine it has the potential to earn more than a high APR savings.
joe d #
Yea, but once Bank of America (now combined with MBNA) has your name and personal information they will sell it to the devil who will market you to the death. Their privacy policy and marketing tactics are the most borderline unethical on planet earth.
On the otherhand, I’d had an ING Direct account for 5-6 and it’s supre slick…except their website needs a redesign like my dog needs his balls back.