Online banking?

takmjs · January 2016

I haven't been to this board for quite a while, but I absolutely love it and want to be more involved. I'm glad to come back and still see the same people posting. I'm sorry I always make my posts so long.

I have a cash rewards checking account with my local bank, that requires 15 purchases on its debit card each month to get the 1.51% interest. It's so frustrating when I don't make the 15 purchases, because then I get 0.01%. So sad when I miss it by 1 purchase (or the purchase doesn't post until the 1st/2nd of the next month), and that happened about 4 out of the 12 months last year.

In the mail a week or so ago, I got a Discover online savings account ad. It's 0.95% all the time, no annual fees or anything. I want to sign up for something where I get similar or more interest, no matter how many purchases I make. I have 3 credit cards, all of which have their own rewards, and I'd like to be able to actually get the benefits from them. Right now, I can't b/c I'm always trying to put everything on my debit card to make sure I get my 15 purchases (and usually it's very late in the month). I always pay off the balance on my credit cards each month, so the interest is not an issue. I've calculated it, and the rewards I would get on my credit cards would be similar, if not more, than what I get on my checking account interest now. And with the rewards on my credit cards, if I buy gift cards (which 2 of the 3 allow), I get 20% off of them....so even more bang for my buck. My local checking account was 4% interest when I first signed up for it (9+ years ago), so I made sure I got the 15 purchases so I could get the 4% interest. It gradually went down to the 1.51% it's at now, and it just doesn't seem as worth it to make sure I have 15 purchases.

I'm wondering if anyone has or knows of an online checking/savings/banking account that I could have easy access to my money when needed, able to pay bills with it, has at least 1% interest on it, no annual fees, etc.? I also wondered if there is anywhere that gets way more than 1% or the 1.51%, even if it's not online?

vlagrl29 · January 2016

At our local credit union we have 4% interest in savings on the first $1500. All other savings accounts are 1% I believe. They also have an annual cash back reward that goes into your savings account. Ours was $19 this year - not much I know but it would be more if we had car loans and mortgage with them which we don't.

Xstatic3333 · January 2016

Ditto, check your local credit union. We get 4% on our first $3,000, and the online and mobile platforms are great.

ETA My H and I can each have one of these accounts, even if one is joint.

CuriousKiddosMama · January 2016

We just switched to the discover savings account. It has worked really well so far. We also signed up when they had a bonus, so that was really nice. Way better than what we were getting at our bank!

lbonga1 · January 2016

I just signed up for Mango Money. It's actually a prepaid debit card, but it has an attached savings account. Both are FDIC insured. You get 6% APY up to $5000, as long as you do a direct deposit of $500 each month. It counts an ACH transfer from some banks as a direct deposit. It does have a $3/month fee, so the actual percentage works out to be a bit less, but still over 5% as long as you keep the full $5000 in the savings account.

To get the money out of the savings account, you have to transfer to the card first, then you can either spend it like using a normal debit card, or you can do an ACH pull from your bank.

Erikan73 · January 2016

Do you have any monthly bills, like utilities or cell phone that you can set up for automatic payment that would count towards your 15 transactions?

LillibetteV · January 2016

We use Ally for our emergency fund to get the better interest rate, but it does take a few days for transfers to process. Do you have Santander where you live? We use their Extra20 checking and savings accounts for our every day spending and get $20 put into the savings account every month that we use direct deposit and bill pay (so....every month for us) on the checking. The interest rate is technically terrible, but the $20 monthly bonus more than makes up for it.

short+sassy · January 2016

LillibetteV said:

We use Ally for our emergency fund to get the better interest rate, but it does take a few days for transfers to process. Do you have Santander where you live? We use their Extra20 checking and savings accounts for our every day spending and get $20 put into the savings account every month that we use direct deposit and bill pay (so....every month for us) on the checking. The interest rate is technically terrible, but the $20 monthly bonus more than makes up for it.

WOW!! I have never heard of something like that. A bank that essentially pays ME a monthly service fee...rock on! Unfortunately, they are not in my area, but that's pretty amazing.

Online banking?

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