Increase your SavINGs with ING
For the past several months I have been using ING checking and high yield savings accounts. Their checking account is called Electric Orange and their savings account is called Orange Savings. I have been very pleased with both of them and have very few complaints. For years I used Wells Fargo as my bank of choice. The branches were easily accessible to me and this was the bank my parents set my account up at many years ago. Once you are used to something it is often hard to make a change. Over the last year I have become more aware of my budgeting and saving. As I began to take a closer look at my bank statements each month, I noticed quite a few bank fees that were repeating. A charge of $6.95 for online banking or a $2.00 ATM fee began to add up very quickly. Of course many of the ATM fees were my fault. These could easily be eliminated if I planned ahead and pulled out cash from a Wells Fargo ATM. However, it seems that for some reason or another there is always at least one occasion where I need cash, but am not near a Wells Fargo ATM. I think the last straw was when I called the bank to discuss a bank fee and they charged me another bank fee for the phone call!
I have had my ING Electric Orange account for several months now and just recently moved my direct deposit I receive at work to this account. The transition has been a smooth one. If you are moving between banks I highly suggest you initially leave some money in your old account for any automatic payments you may have set up and forgotten about. You don’t want to be hit with any overdraft fees during the switch. As I mentioned before, I also have an Orange Savings account with a high interest rate of 3.00% APY. I find that having these two accounts with ING has helped me a great deal in my budgeting. How you may ask? Well once you open an ING Orange Savings account you can set up sub-accounts underneath it. For instance, I have several categories under my savings accounts, such as “Emergency Fund”, “Taxes and Insurance” and “Vacation”. I use these categories to set aside a predetermined amount each month. Once logged in to ING I can click on the “Automatic Savings” section and have money moved from my Checking to whichever category I specify on a recurring day each month. Pay yourself first! If you move this money into these savings categories prior to doing anything else, you will be less tempted to spend that money later in the month.
If you have read any of my other posts on this site you may have heard me mention the budgeting program I use, YNAB. YNAB is able to import .qfx files, which contain any banking transactions you have made. ING allows you to download these files from their site and then import them into YNAB. I tend to do this every couple of days. Any transactions that have already been imported will be skipped. I will be showing you exactly how I use YNAB in a future post. Untill then start getting your banking organized. Set up an ING account. I advise you to setup both a Savings and Checking account, but if you like your checking or feel it is to bothersome to move, at the very least set up an Orange Savings account. The sub-category savings buckets are well worth it. Once you setup your budgeting plan and begin to consistently move money to these buckets each month, you will be well on your way to a more organized and happier financial situation.
Helpful Links:
ING Orange Savings
ING Electric Orange
YNAB Budgeting Software
Nov 11th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
I opened my savings account today with ING and am excited to start doing automatic deposits to it each month. My plan is to cut back on the small things over the next couple of weeks and put that into my account.
Nov 19th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
i opened my account on 11-10-2008. it has no min deposit and no monthly fees and they pay me a 2% interest rate with under 1000.00 in it and if there is over that amount the interest rate goes up to 5%. it gives me discounts on loan rates as well when my account has been opened for a year or longer.
please enter me in the elmo contest!!
arose0017@kctcs.edu
aimee
Nov 20th, 2008 at 12:36 am
Aimee, glad to hear you have a savings account going. My contest was for those opening an ING account, but since you are one of the first to leave a comment, I will gladly enter you in the contest. Good luck reaching all your savings goals.
Nov 27th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Life is Not Hard,
I just opened an account with ING Savings today (11-27-08). My investment plans (which, as you can probably tell, were written just prior to starting my ING account and posted on the “Get Rich Slowly” site where I discovered your site) as as follows (Please feel free to offer any advice you may have!):
“I was hoping some people might be able to give me some guidance on when and where I should start high-yield savings and or checking accts. To tell u a bit about myself, I’m in my mid-20’s and basically just recently started life in the real world (finished grad school, marriage, first real career (w/ 401k, currently at max. matched 4% contribution), bought first home, etc. all in a period of about 3 months this past summer!) My wife and I both only have free checking accts. (no savings accts.) at local banks w/ no interest. Neither of us have any real debt other than our 30-yr 5.5% mortgage. Our plan is to save enough in the next 1-2 years ($10-15K, ~$500 minimum/month ACH) to eventually be able to each start Roth IRAs with max. annual contribution ($5000 each for 2008-09) as well as initially set up separate accounts or sub-accounts for emergency fund, future travel plans, etc. After spending the past few days reading all of these posts, I’m leaning toward an initial start with ING Orange Savings and Checking, despite their low rates, mostly because of (a) the $25 bonus if still available (a previous post said it may only be available until mid-Oct) and (b) ING was consistently the most highly recommended throughout the posts, with only a few exceptions. I am also considering UFBDirect (no ACH?), Emigrant (both American Dream and Dollar Saving Direct), OnBank, Provident, GMAC (a little afraid of General Motors problems), and ShoreBank due to their higher rates and/or good overall reviews. I was also considering starting with ING to get the bonus and because it seems to be the best in terms of reviews and then transferring some of my $ to one of the other sites with higher rates that I listed. One thing I was also wondering is if I sign up with ING Savings AND Checking, could I get the $25 referral bonus for each? (I believe that it is only a one-time offer for each new customer) I’m also planning on looking into high-yield checking such as MAFCU, Charter, and similar sites mentioned in previous posts with min. restrictions such as 10-13 debit purchases/month, 1 ACH/month, and e-statements but if minimums met, APYs of up to 6.3%.
Any advice on if my plans sound logical or if I should definitely avoid any of the mentioned sites? (Hope I didn’t forget anything, lol)”
Thanks in advance,
Matt
Dec 11th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Enjoy the Red Bull!
Dec 11th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Thank you Matt, I really appreciate the Red Bull!
Jan 30th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
[...] Pay for College Blog – Tips on reducing the cost of collegeOakwood College United Negro College Fund | Free-4u.com New Scholarship searchIncrease your SavINGs with ING | Life is Not Hard [...]
Feb 14th, 2009 at 12:41 am
[...] Bank the rest. Open a savings account which allows the customer to round up the purchases that they make on their debit card. This money [...]
Apr 27th, 2009 at 1:37 am
Enjoying reading your blog. Hard work always pays off.
Jun 13th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts.
You have a great Blog!!! I just added you to my Google News Reader.
Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
Next month I will go to Jamaica on Vacations and visit this Island for the first time.
It?s my first adventure!!! I will update my blog soon!
Keep up the good work.