Savings and Money Market Deals

Bank of America has the “Keep the Change” promotion. You need a checking account, savings account, and check card to participate. This program rounds up your purchase to the nearest dollar and transfers the “change” into your savings account. It also matches 100% of the change for the first 3 months, and 5% after that, up to a total of $250 per year. The check card must not be a rewards card to be eligible for this program. 

Wachovia, now owned by Wells Fargo, has the Way2Save promotion. Way2Save transfers $1 from your checking account to savings each time you make a purchase with your check card, pay a bill online, or set up automatic debits from your checking account. You can also set up an automatic transfer of up to $100 a month from checking to savings. This is a handy way to save if you have your pay direct deposited into your checking account. The program pays a 5% bonus on your savings for the first year, and a 2% bonus on the amount you add each year for the next two years. The program also pays 5% interest on your savings for the first year, and 2% for the next two years. Compare this to earning 2.75% on their money market account, which requires $1,000 to open. 

If you don’t want to lock up your money for a long time but want it to earn a high interest rate, you can put it in a money market account. Consider these offers: 

HSBC Bank, an online bank, is offering 3% APY interest on their savings account, with only $1 required to open the account. 

National City Bank offers 3.25%, guaranteed for 180 days, on their money market account. $5,000 is required to open an account at National City. 

Ever Bank is offering 4% for the first 3 months on the first $50,000 you deposit. The yearly rate is 3.16% after that, the combined rate works out to 3.42% APY.