Thursday, January 31, 2008

Battle of the Savings Programs

Looking for a way to trick yourself into saving? Bank of America and Wachovia Bank both are offering customers a way to do that. BoA's Keep the Change program rounds up your debit-card transactions and puts the change into your savings account. The bank also says it matches up to $250 a year.

Wachovia Bank's newly launched Way2Save program works differently. It moves $1 from your checking account to your Way2Save account whenever you bank online or use your debit card. You can also set up a maximum automatic monthly transfer of $100. Money in the Way2Save account intially yields 5% in interest (tho that's subject to change), and on the first-one year anniversary you get a bonus of 5% of your Way2Save balance up to $300.

Be sure to read the fine print at the banks' Web sites before signing up. You have to have accounts at these banks to take part, of course. But BoA's match and Wachovia's bonus are what sweeten the deal. We're not talking huge sums here, but every little bit counts. Plus, it's nice to see saving being promoted instead of spending — that's a cause I can get behind.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Bank! After reading this, I decided to do some research on savings accounts because I don't have one. Well, I didn't have one. I decided to go for T.D. Ameritrade's deal with Suze Orman. If you deposit $50 in your account each month, they will just give you $100 at the end of the year. Plus the interest is pretty good. I've already made 8 cents :)