Smarty Pig Review
Want the best online savings?
Sure ya do! Who doesn’t?
Every so often, I check out Bankrate.com to see who has the best rates going for savings accounts. I thought I was prudent and that anything with a good rate would be listed there.
The highest rate that they have listed is a 1.40% APY from Sallie Mae. Considering the state of savings accounts, I thought this was really good. My Ally savings account has dropped down to only 1.29% APY over the past few months.
Get 60% More Interest
Well, I found an online savings account that is paying 2.15% APY on balances up to $50,000! That is 60% more interest than my reliable Ally account or anything else listed on the Bankrate website.
West Bank runs the operation, is FDIC insured, and somehow can do this while other banks are hoarding their money and screwing us over. Their stock symbol is WTBA on the NASDAQ if you want to check out their financials.
How It Works
SmartyPig.com is the website to check out and it basically acts like an online piggy bank. Sign up and set a savings goal for something like a house, a wedding, a car, a vacation, etc.
Automatic deductions set by you are taken from your normal checking account and deposited into your Smarty Pig savings. Once you reach enough for your goal there are 3 ways to redeem your savings + interest from your Smarty Pig account.
1- Get a SmartyPig MasterCard® debit card sent to you.
2- Send the money back to your bank.
3- Redeem it for a gift card from a major retailer like Amazon, Travelocity, or Macy’s for up to a 12% cash boost.
It’s good old fashioned frugality and saving at its finest. The extra cash boost you get from the gift cards is a huge deal on top of the 2.15% APY. You can check out a list of participating retailers here. I like to travel so the 10% bonus with a Travelocity looks pretty amazing.
I’m so enthralled with this that I’m opening an account today!
All you need to open an account is $25 so anyone can get started with this savings program. There are also no account fees or minimums. You can set multiple savings goals from $250-$50,000 and calculate how long it will take you to reach them. Family members and friends can even make contributions to help you reach your goals. Smarty Pig is all about setting goals and saving for them opposed to using instant gratification with a credit card, buying a home you can’t afford, and tanking our economy. You do have to set a goal for the account, but you can cancel or change it anytime and get your money back within about 2 business days. There are no catches or tricks to get this interest rate, but it is only good on balances under 50K. If you go over 50K the interest rate is only 0.5%, so this is a good place to stash money that you might need in a while.
10 Ways to Save in 2010
Stay AWAY from Smartypig! These guys are serious bad news. I tried to close an account with them and they made me wait 9 business days!! I had over $40,000 with them in deposits and I tried to close the account – but they held it up because they needed 9 (that’s NINE) business days to verify whether a recurring (get this) $10/month fund deposit would in fact clear. When I explained that they were holding $40,000 that I needed access to within 5 days hostage for $10 (which they could simply credit back or hang on to for all I care), they SO could not care. Stay away from this bunch – quite rude and inflexible. Oh and their website really works hard to hide their phone number from you….