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Free Money – Keep the Change
Posted on October 28th, 2005 in Cool Stuff by Fred McKinnon
Hey Ya’ll -
Well these days, money seems to be ‘tight’ for just about every person I talk to. In the “web hosting business” that I own, new customers are not very frequent, and existing customers downgrade to our cheapest plans all the time. I can’t blame them – I’m always downgrading cell phone plans, etc., to take advantage of the new “deals”.
So – when “free money” comes along – I perk up a second. Yeah – I know … “nothing is ever free”. Don’t be so sure.
Joy and I use the Chase Rewards Visa (formerly First USA) for all our everyday purchases. We discipline ourselves to not ‘charge more than we can payoff’ each month, and the free rewards add up. It’s not long before Chase sends us a $100 check in the mail. Why? For using their card. It costs us nothing.
Today, I was logging into our Online Banking at Bank of America and discovered the newest place for “free money”. Sounded too good to be true, but it’s the real deal. It’s called “Keep The Change” … and if you are a Bank of America customer – check it out.
Use your debit card … and make a purchase. They will round your purchase up to the nearest dollar and transfer the “change” into your savings account. Ok – so far – that’s not free. They are forcing you to “save”.
So .. .if I buy myself a Coke and crakers for $1.25 … my debit card is used and they round it up to $2.00. (yes – they take $2.00 out of my checking account). The $.75 is moved to Savings automatically.
Here’s where there is free money, though …
For the first three months, Bank of America will MATCH every “keep the change” transfer. So I’m forced to save $.75 … but I also get a free $.75 in “matching” savings.
After the first three months, they will match 5%.
I think there is some cap on it, like $250/year – but that’s $250/year!
I think it’s a pretty clever way to make you “save”. They’ve essentially taken control of your change jar … and in my house, that’s a good thing because my change jar gets raided DAILY.
Check it out at:
http://www.bankofamerica.com/promos/jump/ktc/
For the Kingdom,
Fred
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Josh Nunn
