HisHersMoney

As part of the Group Writing Project -> Saving over at wereindebt I’m going to detail my current plan, why I think it’s going to work, and where I am at in the process.

I used to have just a plain-jane savings account through USAA, which is the bank that I use for probably 90% of my banking and insurance needs. Overall they provide excellent customer service and good rates for my credit cards and loans. However, the interest rate on their savings accounts sucks and because I tend to spend money when I have easy access to it, it is not the best place for me to be using for savings.

I was slow to the bandwagon in opening an ING account. But Hers already had one and so we were able to get us both some extra $$$ when I funded my account $250 to start. Extra money is always a bonus! I’m impressed with their website and their interest rates even though they’re falling along with every other bank. One advantage with ING is that I have easy but NOT instant access to my money. With a few days to think about that withdrawal I am more likely to realize that I don’t have to spend that money. Therefore, this is going to be my emergency account. I already have it set up to automatically take out $50 every paycheck.

Now that the main emergency account was set up, I was on a roll. Hers saw the offer that TDAmeritrade was running through Suze Orman for their Money Market accounts. Just borrow a copy of Suze’s Women & Money book or look for it at a bookstore to get the code that is inside. Fund a new account and after 12 monthly automatic deposits of $50 or more and you get a free $100! That along with a decent interest rate was enough for me to sign up right away. I have my account set up for the withdrawals and it will sit there until I receive the bonus. At that point I will either throw what’s into my account into an IRA or plus up the emergency account at ING.

I also realized that I could not completely stop my spending habits cold-turkey. I’ve been jonesing for a set of Bose home theater speakers for a long time now. However, since we are trying to be smart with our money, I decided that there was no way I was going to put them on a credit card or finance them through Bose even with a 0% offer. I signed up for a SmartyPig savings account and set up the amount for the Bose speakers as a goal along with how much we had decided to spend on each other next Christmas. Now I will automatically save for both things each month and be able to pay cash along with making some interest along the way. Who knows, with SmartyPig, I might even be able to convince some friends and family to fund my speakers instead of giving me stuff I’m going to return anyway!

The key to all of this is the automatic withdrawals. Between savings and automatic bill pay for most things I’m pretty much in a set it and forget it mode right now. When you don’t have to actively manage your money it is easier to forget that it’s there and the temptation to spend is lessened.

So what do YOU do? Have you signed up with SmartyPig? Ameritrade?