Free From Broke

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ING $25 Referral Bonuses

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Have you wanted to open an online savings account?

Well here’s your opportunity to open one with ING Direct! They offer high-yield savings with no minimum to open (this includes both savings and CD’s). This means better interest earnings than most other banks. I’ve been using them since April 2003.  If you use one of the referral links below you will receive a $25 bonus. You’ll also be giving me a bonus of $10 so it’s great for us both. In fact, once you open an account you can refer your friends and receive the same bonus as I would. The catch (isn’t there always one) is that you need to open the account with at least $250. What about those no minimums? You can always open an account with any amount lower than $250 but you won’t be eligible for the $25 bonus.

And check this out – If you open with $250 your $25 bonus is an instant 10% return!

Here are the links to use:

Shoot me an email for a link!

ING Sign-up Bonus
ING Sign-up Bonus
ING Sign-up Bonus
ING Sign-up Bonus
ING Sign-up Bonus
ING Sign-up Bonus

If you get the message “We’re sorry, but the referral link within the email you received has expired and is no longer valid. We recommend that you contact the sender and ask them to re-send the referral email. Or click ‘Continue’ to proceed with the application process without the account opening bonus” then the referral has already been used. Shoot me an email and I’ll send you a new link.Like I said, I’ve been using ING Direct for years and I highly recommend them. If I had kept my savings in my brick and mortar bank I would have missed out on a lot of savings and earnings. So what are you waiting for? Go open up a high-yield savings account!

If you don’t have $250 but still want to open an an ING account please click the banner below (please note this is for the Electric Orange account not savings):


As always read the fine print from ING to make sure their online savings is right for you. You should never sign up for anything online without understanding what you are getting into.

Interesting Credit Card Marketing From AAA and Bank Of America

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My wife paid her credit card a couple of days late.

Between work and taking care of the kids (that includes me too) she forgot the exact due date.  It isn’t a card that’s used often.

It happens.

Unfortunately we got hit with a no payment fee (about $30) and an interest fee (a couple of bucks). There were no other late payments on the card so I decided to call the company and ask if they can drop the fees. We’ve been good customers and have been paying in full every month.

So I called the number on the back of the credit card.

I go through all of the phone hoops and get to an account person. He asks who I am. I give him my name and tell him I’m calling on behalf of my wife (this is a credit card she had before we were married). The account rep then says he sees my account. My account? This is my wife’s card! It seems that Bank of America is the issuer of the AAA card and since we have a banking account there he could see my account.

So I tell him our situation, that we never pay late and always pay in full, could you drop the late fees? He tells me since I’m not on the account he can’t authorize it. My wife has to tell the rep to put me on her account. So now I give her the phone which kind of defeated the purpose of me calling since she was taking care of the kids, and she gives him permission to add me to the account. Took two minutes maybe. Easy process. I get the phone back and go back to the original question of removing the fees. He looks at the account and says he can remove the no payment penalty but there’s nothing he can do about the interest fee. I press on the interest but he won’t budge. It was a couple of bucks and it was our fault so OK we’ll pay that. At least we got the no payment fee taken off! The whole process was a bit annoying but in 15 minutes we were able to eliminate a $30 charge.

Fast forward a week or so and we get a package in the mail.

Two new credit cards for the account. We didn’t ask for a new card. Since they added me to the account they assumed that I too would need one of their cards.

Hmm…interesting. I guess they want me to start charging on the account too! Now they double the chance of a late payment or interest charges (not really for us but hypothetically)! What they did wasn’t wrong from what I can tell but it annoys me that they automatically sent out another card assuming I wanted it. Very aggressive marketing on Bank of America’s behalf.

This gets me thinking though.

What cards do we have between us? Should we consolidate some accounts with both of us on the accounts? Until now it hasn’t even been a thought. We’re both responsible with our spending and very open with our spending habits. I like the idea of one separate card between us so we can buy gifts for each other without the cost popping up on a shared statement. How can this affect our credit scores? I need to do some research on this.

P.S. To prevent future late payments we signed up for email alerts from the bank that tell us the payment is due in a few days.

Do you think Bank of America was sneaky in sending us another card?

For those married folks out there – How do you handle credit cards between you and your spouse? I’m interested in hearing your stories.

Loose Change Gets Us Free Meals On Vacation

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So we usually go on vacation in the Summer.

Every time we get free meals from loose change!

Let me explain – We have two change jars in the house: one for quarters and one for all other change. This gets filled up whenever we come home for the day with change in our pockets. The quarters are for laundry so those get used pretty quick and isn’t part of our free meals. The other jar though slowly fills up over the course of the year and is usually filled to the brim by the Summer.

All year we watch the jar fill up higher and higher. It almost becomes a calendar for us to tell when it’s time for vacation! The week before our trip my wife and daughter will go to the local Commerce Online bank (yeah, it says online but they have a ton of brick and mortar locations where I live) and use their coin counting machine which is free for anyone! [This is better than Coinstar since Coinstar charges 8.9% to count your change (though if you convert your change to a gift card or eCertificate the counting is free)].

Now with cash in hand we’re ready to go on vacation.

We can usually get anywhere from $60-$100 depending on the change that’s in the jar. Maybe this only covers one special dinner or maybe this covers the first few meals for us. Either way we look at the meals as being free, paid for by change that accumulated in our pockets over the year.

Of course we understand that the meals aren’t really free.

What’s important is this is another small, disciplined way for us to save some money that we get to use on vacation. What’s more is it’s fun to watch the change grow and fun for our daughter to pour the change in the counting machine (extra bonus here is that she gets to see how saving small amounts can turn into large amounts in time).

What small tricks do you use to save money? Let me know!

Start Saving and Let That Money Build Itself

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So we all want to save more money right?   What can we do to increase our savings?

Many of us were told by our elders that if you want to save money the best place to put it is in a savings account at the bank (remember that old question of whether it’s better to put it under your mattress or in a savings account?).

This was good advice back in the day but the problem with it now is the average bank savings account barely gives you any interest on your money.  Truth is, for most people you are probably losing money since your interest rate is lower than the rate of inflation.

Yup, all that conventional wisdom about putting your money in a savings account is losing you money.

So what do you do?

A savings account is still a good idea but you need to find one that actually gives you a decent interest rate.  A good place for that is an online bank savings account like Capital One 360 Savings.

I’ve been using them for about four years or so and it has been great (there are other online banks out there but 360 Savings has been pretty good to me so far).  They have no minimum and no account fees.  Many other banks offer higher rates but you have to start with a good amount of money (doesn’t it seem likes it’s easy to make money when you have money?).

Go over there and start saving.

Here are some tips to start saving up money that will build itself:

1. If you don’t have to put a lot in, start with something small like $20.  Now you aren’t going to get rich with this but you will see your money growing.

2. Set up an automatic deposit for $5 a week.  We can all scrape together $5, can’t we (you can even start smaller if you need to)?  After a few weeks you’ll see your account growing.

3. As you feel more comfortable try to up the dollar amount, maybe $7 or $10?

4. Once you’ve saved for a bit ask yourself if you can afford to put away some money that you will absolutely not touch for six months.  It doesn’t have to be a lot just something you won’t be needing.

Really, don’t touch the money!  You don’t want to use this money.

Now take this amount and open up a 6-month CD, or Certificate of Deposit (Capital One also has no minimums for their CD’s).  This will give you a slighter better interest rate than your savings account.  Remember though, you shouldn’t need this money for at least six months (12 months CD’s are even better but that’s up to you).

When your CD matures (the six months are up) see if you can open up a new CD maybe with more money.

If you have specific goals to save for you can set up different accounts within your account and fund them differently.  For example, if you need to save up for the holidays set up a holiday account and put a few of your dollars in their every week/month, etc…

You should be seeing your account growing now both due to the money you’ve put in as well as the interest you’ve earned.  It’s actually kinda fun to look at my account and see how much interest I’ve earned this month.

I didn’t mention it but you will need to have a checking account already.  This will be where you transfer your money from into your 360 Savings account (and vice versa).

This in itself isn’t going to get you rich but it can help you to start saving more effectively.  The hardest part is putting those first dollars in there and keeping up the discipline.

The journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.  The same idea holds true with savings and wealth – it all starts with that first dollar!

Let me know what you think and if this works for you!