Are you as tired of seeing those kinds of ads on the internet as I am? (Not even counting tv and other places.) My apologies if some show up on this post…AdSense only lets me block so many ads.
Anyway, as the year is winding down, I was taking a look at our banking and preparing for our *dread* taxes. As I looked through our ING accounts, I couldn’t believe how much money we earned just on savings. It’s not thousands or millions or enough to raise a family, like those ads promise, but it’s still a lot of money when you consider that I put little or no effort into it.
I chose to bank there and I set up direct deposit and I deposit money via PayPal…but that’s really all I’ve done. It would be worth doing that for the sheer convenience of being able to spend my money with a handy plastic card (ok, that’s the checking account but the ING interface makes it quite easy to transfer).
To be more precise, we’ll say that it’s a great place to see money build up for the future without creating lumps in my mattress. In fact, years I was happy enough to get virtually no interest and just have a handy place to store my money.
There are few places in this world where we get money without putting in a lot of effort. I thought it would be nice to take a moment at the end of the year an appreciate little things like the interest we earn.
(Yes, I’m aware they earn money on my money and so it’s not money for nothing…but after all those years of savings earning 0.2% interest, it’s thrilling to see the difference.)
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It is certainly FAR better than the mattress. The other day, I read about an elderly woman who didn’t trust banks. She put her entire life savings of $10,000 into a box of crackers. Then in a moment of forgetfulness returned the box to the store. The store erroneously reshelved it (it should have been composted). Another customer bought it. They were honest and after some work by the police, the error was discovered. The woman got her savings back. I found it sad that the honest family didn’t get any reward from her for their honesty. Even a little would have been nice for the child who discovered the money and turned it over to her parents.
To Dad:
As honest people, I’m certain they weren’t expecting a reward of any kind, other than the fact that they’ll sleep well at night knowing they did the right thing.
I like money as much as the next guy, but it’s not all about the green stuff.
I’ll agree, it is pretty awesome that I earned money for just putting money into my savings account. And on top of that, not having that money in my checking account (where I might be more likely to spend it) also kept my costs down.
If I’ve done the math correctly, the interest I earned this year is equal to ~20 hours of work/salary. Not bad for spending a few minutes to set the automatic transfers!
My two favorite ways of “earning” extra money is 1) not spending it in the first place, i.e. finding ways to save money and 2) bank interest. I know that the returns on bank interest aren’t high compared to other things, but it literally happens without me doing a thing – my other investments require work.
Free money is the best money! Thanks for the mention 🙂
It’s great to move from loose change to an income stream from saving. All that hype about compound interest is true – it really does add up.
But it’s a moveable feast, too. When you get into investing the old cash returns look mediocre, just like your old 0.2% interest rate did. (Or perhaps I should say ‘used to look’ – a bear market knocks the stuff out of such confidence I guess!)
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