Saturday, October 24, 2009

Keep the Change?

Every time I go to the bank, the teller asks me to join their "Keep the Change" program. The deal is that every time you purchase something with your debit card, the bank will round your purchase to the nearest dollar amount and transfer the difference from your checking account to your savings account.. For instance, if you made a purchase for $7.59, the bank will put the extra $0.41 into your savings account and then match it, leaving you with savings of $0.82. The deal only works if you make LOTS of debit card purchases, because the more purchases you make, the faster the money will add up. Oh, and FYI - the bank only matched the money 100% for the first three month, then only 5% thereafter with a $250 per year maximum.



I joined once before a few years back, but I found that I lost more money than I saved because the bank required me to keep a certain amount of money in the savings account (money that I did not have, by the way...) Because I couldn't meet their limits, I incurred additional fees. Since then, I believe the bank has lowered the account limits, and the teller told me that as long as I put $25 a month into the account, I wouldn't be charged any additional fees.

I'm still a little skeptical about the whole thing, and I'm not sure if I can actually commit to this right now. Although $25 doesn't seem like a lot of money, for me it could mean choosing gas over groceries for the week. However, it would be a great way for me to jumpstart my savings plan.

What do you think? Should I keep the change or keep walking?
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3 comments:

  1. UnknownOctober 28, 2009 at 4:16 PM

    I've been enrolled in this for the past year at least, and I have to say it just doesn't work well for me. At this point in my life when I'm dropping all of my so-called "disposable income" on my debts because I want to pay everything off by June of next year. It just isn't feasible for me to have a savings account that charges me when I 1) make too many transfers in a month and/or 2) don't have enough in the bank to cover so that they won't charge me a monthly maintenace fee. So I've opted to go with two checking accounts for now.

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  2. princessmydOctober 28, 2009 at 10:21 PM

    Good point, Dems. I don't really have disposable income either, but I need to jumpstart my savings somehow, so I thought this might be a good way to do it. But it sounds like it can be more of a hassle than a way to help me save. Thanks for reading my blog and for the comment...I look forward to seeing more in the future!

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  3. AmibethNovember 6, 2009 at 2:09 PM

    I have a thing against the bank charging you to have a savings account if you don't have a certain balance. It makes me mad! I signed up for my bank's savings program - every time I make a debit card purchase, they transfer $1 (of my money) to my free savings account. I can also transfer up to $100 a month into the same account, and it has a decent interest rate, and I don't so much notice the $1 for every purchase. But its easy enough to transfer it back if I have to. I set up an automatic transfer to my savings account on every payday, also. Its not a lot by any means, but it makes it easier to not "miss" the money. In any case, I think it would be great if you could find a way to save even a little bit at a time, so I hope you find a way that works for you!

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