It's Official
It's officially the spending season...let the holidays begin...I love the holidays because it's just always a nicer time of the year for some reason. What sucks is how broke you get by the time the holidays are over. And let's not forget the birthdays that fall in the middle of the holidays.
Every new year we are supposed to make resolutions for the coming year. Resolutions that ideally we will follow and that should ultimately make life better or easier. Resolutions such as quitting smoking, quitting drinking, losing weight, exercising more, lower my spending and so forth. Every year I think i've either given up or simply forgotten about my resolution by mid February. I think the average person does the same by about mid April/May. Why is it so hard to follow through with a resolution til the end of the year? Who knows...but i'm already thinking of my resolution.
For the year 2007 I hope to SAVE. That's it! I just want to save and hopefully have a decent lump sum by the time 2008 comes around. So far i've tried to save, but have ended up takin money out of savings here and there for various reasons. This time i want to put money away and not touch it. Every day i try to visit some Personal Finance web sites and read some articles. Sites like Personal Finance Advice and Money Under 30. These sites offer articles mostly on how to save, or how to control your spending as well as random other topics. There are so many others out there it's ridiculous. And deep down in the back of my mind I kinda hope my blog will turn into one of those Personal Finance sites. All in due time...
Point being, (this is the meat of this post) in order to go through with my resolution, i need a means to save. If you havent seen or read lately, the High Yielding Online Savings market is pretty much booming. By booming I mean you will get higher interest rates by putting your money into one of these Online Savings account than if you went to a local bank and opened a savings account there. I have 3 accounts setup so far with 3 different companies. I'll give a brief review of the three.
1) ING Direct
- They were the first company that i heard of that did the high yielding savings account. They're currently offering %4.40 Annual Percentage Yield. It's not the highest, but they usually up the % every few months to stay competitive with the rest. What i like about them is the User Interface of their website. I think it's the best layout and design of the others. Easy to use , easy to navigate. There is no minimum deposit required, so you can open an account with $1. The other thing i like about them is if you want to withdraw money from your savings account, it will take 2-3 days to transfer from the savings to your local checking account. This makes it harder to dip into your savings. If you want to open an account with at least $250.00 , use my referral link and we'll both get a cash bonus.
2) Citi Bank Online- I found out about CitiBank when i applied for a credit card with them. They offer a higher interest rate of %5.00 APY. The only thing with them is when you open a savings account with them they automatically open a checking account also and deposit $1 into it. You are not obligated to use the checking account. Their savings account is much like ING where there is no minimum balance. However they make it easier for you to dip into you savings because they give you a debit card. What i like about them is you can use the debit card to withdraw money at any 7/11 convenience store that has a Citi ATM. Depending on the way you look at it, it could be good and bad because it gives you easier access to your savings and gives you the option to dip into your savings. I know i'm guilty of dipping because they make it easy to.
3) Emigrant Direct
- I don't really like EmigrantDirect but i still have an account with them with $5 in it. I signed up with them because they had the highest interest rate. I don't like them because they're site is usually slow for me. The user interface i dont think is that great and just overall i didnt have a very good experience with them. Although they do offer one of the highest yielding savings accounts. They also have no minimum balance.
Bottom line is I'm trying my damndest to put away 10% of each paycheck into a savings account. I hope that my new year resolution will be followed through but only time will tell. But I hope if anything i can get others to do the same because at this point, it's like....Why Not?
Every new year we are supposed to make resolutions for the coming year. Resolutions that ideally we will follow and that should ultimately make life better or easier. Resolutions such as quitting smoking, quitting drinking, losing weight, exercising more, lower my spending and so forth. Every year I think i've either given up or simply forgotten about my resolution by mid February. I think the average person does the same by about mid April/May. Why is it so hard to follow through with a resolution til the end of the year? Who knows...but i'm already thinking of my resolution.
For the year 2007 I hope to SAVE. That's it! I just want to save and hopefully have a decent lump sum by the time 2008 comes around. So far i've tried to save, but have ended up takin money out of savings here and there for various reasons. This time i want to put money away and not touch it. Every day i try to visit some Personal Finance web sites and read some articles. Sites like Personal Finance Advice and Money Under 30. These sites offer articles mostly on how to save, or how to control your spending as well as random other topics. There are so many others out there it's ridiculous. And deep down in the back of my mind I kinda hope my blog will turn into one of those Personal Finance sites. All in due time...
Point being, (this is the meat of this post) in order to go through with my resolution, i need a means to save. If you havent seen or read lately, the High Yielding Online Savings market is pretty much booming. By booming I mean you will get higher interest rates by putting your money into one of these Online Savings account than if you went to a local bank and opened a savings account there. I have 3 accounts setup so far with 3 different companies. I'll give a brief review of the three.
1) ING Direct
- They were the first company that i heard of that did the high yielding savings account. They're currently offering %4.40 Annual Percentage Yield. It's not the highest, but they usually up the % every few months to stay competitive with the rest. What i like about them is the User Interface of their website. I think it's the best layout and design of the others. Easy to use , easy to navigate. There is no minimum deposit required, so you can open an account with $1. The other thing i like about them is if you want to withdraw money from your savings account, it will take 2-3 days to transfer from the savings to your local checking account. This makes it harder to dip into your savings. If you want to open an account with at least $250.00 , use my referral link and we'll both get a cash bonus.
2) Citi Bank Online- I found out about CitiBank when i applied for a credit card with them. They offer a higher interest rate of %5.00 APY. The only thing with them is when you open a savings account with them they automatically open a checking account also and deposit $1 into it. You are not obligated to use the checking account. Their savings account is much like ING where there is no minimum balance. However they make it easier for you to dip into you savings because they give you a debit card. What i like about them is you can use the debit card to withdraw money at any 7/11 convenience store that has a Citi ATM. Depending on the way you look at it, it could be good and bad because it gives you easier access to your savings and gives you the option to dip into your savings. I know i'm guilty of dipping because they make it easy to.
3) Emigrant Direct
- I don't really like EmigrantDirect but i still have an account with them with $5 in it. I signed up with them because they had the highest interest rate. I don't like them because they're site is usually slow for me. The user interface i dont think is that great and just overall i didnt have a very good experience with them. Although they do offer one of the highest yielding savings accounts. They also have no minimum balance.
Bottom line is I'm trying my damndest to put away 10% of each paycheck into a savings account. I hope that my new year resolution will be followed through but only time will tell. But I hope if anything i can get others to do the same because at this point, it's like....Why Not?
posted by Benjamin Chiang | 1:05 PM
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