Blake Schwendiman's Blog and Blook

You know I like to blog about the new things I'm doing. So here's another one:

Ok. I'm behind the curve on a lot of stuff. I joined Netflix.com months after I first heard about it. I got my iPod years after they came out. I still don't have HDTV. I'm not an early adopter in all things. I like to know somebody that's been there that I can ask questions.

Here's one I wish I had known about much sooner: ING Direct.
If you haven't heard of ING Direct, you should check it out. In a nutshell, it's a savings account. But it's an amazing savings account. Right now the interest rate on their accounts is 4.35%. For comparison, my credit union pays me 0.92% on my regular savings and 2.37% on my money market account. So 4.35% is a big deal. Not only do they provide a great savings interest rate, but there's no minimum balance, so setup fee ... nothing.

From what I can tell, they can do this because it's all online. There are no branches anywhere, so they keep their costs down. You sign up online. After that you can transfer money between your regular bank checking account and your ING Direct account at any time. You can also set up automatic transfers.

I set up my account to pull 1/4 of my mortgage payment from my checking account each week. Then, just before the end of the month, I have it set up to automatically put my full mortgage payment back into my checking account so the money's always there. This accomplishes 3 things: first, since I have no spending self control, this method ensures that I can always make my house payment. Second, I earn interest on my house payment all month long. Third, there are 52 weeks in a year but only 12 months, so each year I save an extra house payment.

In this age when everyone is doing online banking of some sort, ING Direct just makes sense.