I have been on the lookout for some high interest savings accounts for quite some time now. I have used a few and have watched the rates go down significantly for many of them. I saw a review of Smarty Pig from a blogger at myfinancialjourney.com and was impressed with the high interest rate that they are still offering.
There is one down side to the account. It’s a goal oriented savings account. That means that when you set up the account you have to set a savings goal, and then set up automatic deposits into the account. When you have reached your goal it is an all or nothing removal. You can’t just take out a little bit of money at a time, you have to take it all out. Now, there is a way around this. You could either change your goal amount and then withdraw all your money, or set up the minimum $250 goal, deposit $250 and then just continue to make deposits as you chose (no automatic deposit needed). But again, you’d still have to withdraw all your money when you want to take some out.
All that being said, if I was to put my emergency fund into this savings account at 3.05% APY and just let the money sit there making me money that blows away what I am getting from all the other online accounts. I still think I’ll keep some money in my ING account for the liquidity of the money, but I am going to move all the rest of my funds into the Smarty Pig account and take full advantage of the higher interest rates. If they ever slash their rates to lower than what my other accounts are offering I’ll close down the account and move the money back over.
When I went to set up my account with them they did a verification against my credit report for my mortgage to verify I was who I said I was. The only problem was that I failed! This is a huge problem for me because I know about my finances and where my mortgage is and how much I pay on it so I’m not sure why I failed. I called their support line and they couldn’t tell me either. So now I have to wait for them to mail me a form for verification, sign it and fax it back into them. It’s worth it for the almost double % in the account but this is a little disappointing.
Oh well, time to let my money start working harder for me!
