Make Money With Me!

One of the most important steps in financial planning is to ensure you have an emergency savings account.  If you have trouble saving, then putting your money into another account that has a time delay in getting access to your money is the best advice.  I use CapitalOne 360 (formerly known as ING Direct).  It takes a couple of days for your money to be available and another couple of days to get your money transferred back to your account.

If I were to need to dip into my emergency savings account then I would put the expense on my credit card and withdrawal the money back into my normal checkings account to instantly pay off the credit card.  All interest rates are low in the country and CapitalOne 360 is currently at .75%.  You can find higher interest rates at several banks and you can always check the rates using www.bankrate.com.  Make sure there is $0/$1 to open and no annual fees.

An emergency account should be 3-6 months of all your expenses.  Emergency requirements are usually where financial troubles start; whether it be your car broke down, some medical expenses or any other unexpected requirement.  People will use credit cards or worse, pull money out of retirement accounts and end up paying interest and/or taxes and the unexpected requirement costs even more.  When people are strapped, these emergencies can be the breaking point.  Before saving for retirement or even reducing debt, it is important to have an emergency savings account that earns interest.

When I first started using ING Direct, they were consistently rated 5 stars and were in the top 5 highest interest rates.  I've been with them for a very long time and the interface is super easy.  They are still rated 5 stars on Bankrate but their interest rate is lower than some other banks.

If you have $250 to start an emergency savings account and are interested in starting your emergency savings account with CapitalOne 360, then please use this link to sign up.  https://r.capitalone360.com/V1AVDPYTUb You will get a $20 sign up bonus and so will I.  Remember, you need to open the bank account with at least $250.