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Thursday, February 08, 2007

Bank of America

Over the past few months, I have seen a number of my fellow personal finance blogger's, discussing opening a Bank of America (B.o.A.) account. While, I thought it would be nice to have an account at a bank that was for the most part coast to coast, I have not made the switch for one glaring reason.
What is that reason? My credit Union, gave me free checking. Something the B.o.A.'s of the world would not do. Well the other day B.o.A. delivered packets of information to my workplace, that outlined how if I transferred my direct deposit to them, I would get my checking free.
Now, I had free checking. Great, now I can't use that as an excuse. What's more, I can earn a $25 bonus after I have kept the account open (and active) for 90-days. So, I am making money, but that's not all. I signed up for their "keep the change program," as well. That meant, I had to open a savings account with them. Which means after the same 90-days, I will get another $10 bonus. I also get these same bonus' if I refer anyone to B.o.A., who also earn the bonuses for their new account(s). Plus, my "visa check card (aka debit card) will have my picture on it, for even tighter protection, then my credit union currently provides.
Keep the change

OK, so I mentioned the "keep the change" program. You may have not heard about this. If so, you may be asking what is keep the change?
Simply put "keep the change," is a plan where every time you use your visa check card at the gas station, grocery store or where ever, they will round the amount of your purchase up to the nearest whole dollar and deposit those pennies into your savings account. For example if you spend $5.01, they will deposit 99 cents into your savings account. Or, if you spend $6.99, they will transfer 1 cent to your savings account.
Plus, it gets better. They will match 100% of your "keep the change" savings for the first three (3) months. After that, they'll continue continue to match 5% a year, every year. The downside though, is that none of this matching will be placed into your account until the end of the year.
Posted by Kevin Surbaugh at 2/08/2007 07:33:00 PM
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5 comments:

  1. A good friend of mine at work has been using the "Keep the Change" program at BoA for some time. He seems to like it, but he did mention one drawback to be wary of...he finds himself overspending just to get the savings contributions up.
    ReplyDelete
  2. Ah ha. Now the question is, is there a service charge on the savings account?

    I've used BofA for years, and I've been pretty satisfied with them.

    I particularly like the online account management. I like the security features built into the website.

    I also have a BofA credit card which is linked to my checking account, so if I were to bounce a check it goes automatically onto the credit card (overdraft protection), although this hasn't yet happened to me.

    Just pay attention to their fine print or they will nickle and dime you to death.
    ReplyDelete
  3. jagular: I have a BoA savings, and as long as you make I think it is $50 worth of deposits into it each month (could be less, I can't remember completely) there is no fee for the savings account. So I simply have it setup to automatically xfer $25 every two weeks when I get my check deposited. No savings fees (doesn't matter if you take it back out, as long as the deposit is made).
    ReplyDelete
  4. Jagular as Bigsibling said as long as a minimum deposit is made each month the savings account is free also. I believe it is only $25 though.
    ReplyDelete
  5. I did the KTC program last year. The amount to transfer for free savings is $25. I made $122 off the program. I should have maxed it out but I didn't have any bills that I could pay in $1.01 increments. It takes a while to max out buying $1.01 of gas at a time.
    ReplyDelete

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