Bank of America has a really clever promotion called Keep the Change:
Every time you buy something with a Bank of America Visa® debit card, we’ll round up your purchase to the nearest dollar amount and transfer the difference from your checking to your savings account free of charge. Because every bag of groceries, every coffee and every tank of gas adds up to more savings for you.
So you get to keep the change and grow your savings.
If you buy a meal that costs $5.13, $6.00 will be charged to your debit card and $0.87 will be transferred to your savings account. For the first three months they’ll also match your savings at a rate of 100%. It’s a digital change jar. I make a lot of small purchases with my debit card so I could see that really adding up in a hurry. It’s a smart way to encourage saving.
(link via Signal vs. Noise)
Tags: Finance
October 26th, 2005 at 4:10 pm
American Express has a similar card (the One card). It’s certainly good to encourage savings. Unfortunately, those “saved” funds are still highly-available funds, and if you don’t curtail spending, you’re just spending that extra money you’ve charged. The 100% match is good, but I’m not sure what to make of the 5% match thereafter. They get their 2% cut from that extra money you’re “saving” and you still have to hold your funds in a BoA account.
I’d normally never link to anything that has Ralph Nader associated with it, but PIRG has a decent article about debit cards. It’s good to keep in mind that debit cards are just credit cards without as much consumer protection.
October 26th, 2005 at 6:41 pm
Thanks for the info. Good to know. I have been using the credit card, looks like I will switch