I came across an advertisement recently from Bank of America: open a checking account with them with a minimum depoist of $500, make at least one debit transaction within 30 days of opening the account, and they'll deposit $75.00 into the account, or mail you a check if the account is closed. This is a much better interest rate than I'm getting in my passbook savings or online savings accounts, so I'm going to sign up for it.
I'm so pleased to be in a position to be able to do this -- to have $500 that I can actually live without for a month, and to be able to compare savings rates from separate savings accounts. This is not a position in which I have found myself for quite some time. I lived hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck (with credit card support between paychecks) for years and years. But in the past 18 months or so, I've really turned my financial life around (with help from tips on Dollar Stretcher and the Dave Ramsey method). But my budgeting and persistance have paid off. Sticking with a weekly spending budget and putting whatever was left over (be it $1.00 or $20.00) into savings has made me feel so much more secure. Gary is doing a poll on what financial independence means, and while I'm nowhere near financially independent (for me, it means paying off my mortgage and student loans and having $20,000 in the bank -- something that is in the future, but not the near future), I am starting to taste it, and I know how much more peace I will fell when it eventually happens.
And that $75 will go straight back into savings to help me reach my own goals of financial independence.
