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(and earn some interest)

What bank do you use? Serious question. Mine offers 0.01% interest on savings accounts. Yes, zero point zero one percent.

If you use a savings account as an investment vehicle, you're doing it wrong. Invest it elsewhere or find some place that will take your money and give you more back.

One of my banks, ING Direct, gave me a $1,000 overdraft credit line automatically at 7.5% APY, with no overdraft fees. Oh, and they're a responsible institution, so they didn't need any bailout money...

I used to be a Washington Mutual customer. You remember their "Free Checking!" and "No Fees" adds? Well, one day I deposited my paycheck and "withdrew" $100 of that. My balance before depositing my paycheck was under $100. I'm sure you can guess what they did. Since the check didn't "clear" the same day, it took me into overdraft, charged me ~$25 in overdraft fees. When I complained to customer service, they said it happened all the time - when I told them I would be switching banks, they refunded the fee. I did, of course, close that account.

cause the last I checked, my money deposited in "risk-free" accounts is getting somewhere between 0.5 and 1.5% interest in these days of rampant money printing. A 5%, tax-free return on a solar installation is looking like a mighty fine return right about now.

...I could see a script that generates a random keyboard layout, a key-to-character chart would have to printed on the screen...

INGdirect does this with their log in. Users have a numeric password, they can enter it by:
-using the mouse to click the number pad displayed on the screen, or
-typing the letters that are randomly assigned to the numbers on the screen

Wow, guess I got out just in time. I pulled my money out of there a couple months ago, closed the account, and moved it into EverBank. When I signed up for NetBank in 2004, they had one of the most competitive interest rates for checking accounts available (according to Bankrate.com). However, as time went on I noticed there were more and more online banks that had better deals. I suppose it wouldn't have been too bad, it looks like all of NetBank's customers automatically are getting transferred to ING Direct.

The acquisition further strengthens ING DIRECT's position as the leading direct bank which aims to meet the financial needs of "Main Street, USA."

Consider that, if you could have a 4% APY account, every $900 that you have in Cash or a non-interest Checking account is effectively $3/mo you're missing out on right there. That's the opportunity cost of cash, and it's as real a cost as any other.

My money - just over $1k right now, until I start my job in a week or two - is presently sitting in ING Direct, where it's earning 4% in a checking account. A checking account! (No paper checks, but I have a debit card and can have them send paper checks to people via the mail for free, and they have enough free ATMs to meet my needs.)

Banks should be your friends, not your foes. Admittedly, using paper money can help you self-regulate spending impulses - it seems more real to be handing over a big wad of bills than swiping a little card - but this isn't some sort of travesty that I would fault the banks or credit system for, it's a matter of self control! If you want to criticize Consumerism and reckless wanton hedonism and spending and such, blame the spenders. And consider that even if you have a bank account, there's certainly no reason why you can't restrict yourself to paying with cash anyway if you've got a convenient enough ATM. Hey, the inconvenience of the ATM could convince you not-to-make even more foolish purchases. Such things are tools! They are their for your benefit as well as the banks'! Use them wisely, but use them!

* Given the present state of interest rates in this country. My Wachovia checking account earns what, 0.2%? I forget.

I don't know why you're using 1%. If you deposit it into a HSBC online savings account, you get about 5%. APY, which is actual compounded interest in a year, is 5.05%; the APR, or nominal non-compounded interest, is only 4.98% or something like that. No minimum investment. No requirement other than that you have some other bank account (so you can transfer money from your usual account to your HSBC account). If you put money in, it takes about 3 days to go in (due to the Automated Clearing House system in use in the USA); if you take it out, it takes about 3 days. That's something HSBC has no control over.

If you don't like HSBC, you can try ING Direct, which gives something like 4.8% interest. No minimum investment, but when you put money in, you need to leave it for 14 days before you take it out again. Also 3 days to make the transaction. So if you have $300 in the ING account, and you put in $500, then for the next two weeks only $300 will be available to you, unlike the HSBC account where as soon as the money shows up after 3 days you can take it right out again.

Then of course you have other options like CD's (Certificates of Deposit, not the shiny discs) where you can commit to investing some minimum amount of your money for some minimum time, and get even higher interest rates than that. But 5% should be the standard of comparison for the "Do Nothing" option. (That is, if you're not earning 5% interest before taxes, you can assume you're losing money.)

Anyway, per your calculation, you'd get about $25 interest on $1000 invested throughout the year. You can estimate it like this: part of the $1000 gets the full 5% interest, and part of it gets almost no interest (depending on what time in the year you invested), so on average you get about 2.5% interest. 2.5% of $1000 is $25. It jives with your calculation of $5+ for 1% interest on $1000 evenly distributed.

If $25 doesn't matter that much to you, please write me a cheque for this amount.

ING Direct bank does something like this for logins. There are a series of numbered icons in the same pattern every time, but they have a random map of letters assigned to them. You can click the icons or enter in the corresponding letter sequence if you are extra paranoid.

Example:
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

map:
P G M
R C W
Q Y K

Note these are together on the same icons.
If my pin is "12345", I can click the icons with my mouse, or enter in "PGMRC" into a text box. You are not allowed to enter numbers in the box.

Keyloggers would defeat the security at most online banking websites. I know it would defeat www.wamu.com which uses only a username and password. And yes, HSBC has taken better measures on some of their websites but this still does not protect against keyloggers.

So who should we look to for an answer? ING Direct! They use a two step process to log in. The first is a non-descript customer number. This step would be defeated by a keylogger or if someone had some mail stolen. Step two is to ask you to answer a pair of personal questions only you know the answer to. Still this could be defeated by a keylogger. The third step is pure genius though. First of all the page displays an image and phrase that you pre-selected. While a keylogger might pick up this phrease during account setup it would not pick up the image. If the image is not present, you are instructed not to enter your PIN number. Then the entering of the PIN number is via a keypad that you click with your mouse. Each number corresponds to a random letter that changes everytime you log in. If you choose you can type in the letter that corresponds to each number for that log in. In this case the data a keylogger might capture would be useless. This is the best security feature on the website and ensures almost nobody except the account owner can ever log in. Of course if the PIN is compromised then the whole system breaks down but a smart user will never have a compromised PIN.

One warning. "Savings" accounts, in order to qualify for the name under U.S. banking regulations, have restrictions on the number of withdrawals you can make in a month.

to quote http://home.ingdirect.com/privacy/privacy_security .asp?s=legal (click on Personal Deposit Account Terms and Conditions)

Limits on Withdrawals/Transfers from Your OSA: Pursuant to Federal law, you're only allowed to take money out of your OSA 6 times per monthly statement cycle ("Cycle"). If you repeatedly make more than 6 withdrawals during a Cycle, we may close your account. Under Federal law, we must reserve the right to require you to give us at least 7 days written notice before you take money out of your OSA. (This hardly ever happens but legally we have to say it!)

I've been seeing those annoying ING commercials for years now. They claim "high interest", but with most banks these days that just means 0.3% instead of 0.2% annually.

You're the first person I've ever seen advocating those accounts - what kind of interest do you actually see? How much work is it to put money in or pull it out when you choose to?

why not take a look at some high yield savings accounts? they can earn as much interest as a CD, but you have the convenience of instant access to money

right now, HSBC direct is at 5.05% APY
another popular one is ING Direct at 4.35% APY
i believe even citibank offers one

my suggestion is to sign up with several and transfer money between them depending on who has the highest rate. right now, i've put some cash into hsbc. you even get an atm card for immediate access to cash (note: this is not a debit/check card). transferring money is easy, too. once all the requisite materials have arrived via snail mail, you can link you existing online banking accounts.

i can transfer from my local bank to hsbc in about 3 minutes. the funds take a few days to transfer, but it's "instant" enough for me. i usually find the better deals crop up in the anandtech hot deals forum, but a google search may work as well

Have you seen ING's savings accounts?

http://home.ingdirect.com/products/products.asp

If nothing else, it keeps you up with inflation.

Okay, so it's actually 4 steps to becoming rich. (See below.) Here are basic guidelines to how you should save or invest your money. As always, your own life situation will affect how you save money. Pulling money out early completely destroys the purpose of saving it. If you pull out money early you will also probably get hit with penalty fees and taxes as well. For example, pulling money out of a 401k early will cost you 10%(!) of your funds, and that doesn't even include the taxes you will have to pay.

• Saving money for over 5-10 years? Buy index funds.
• Saving money for 6 months to 5 or more years? Look at Certificates of Deposits (CDs) or bonds.
• Need cash where you can easily reach it? (i.e. less than six months) Put it in a savings or money market account. You can find one that has 4-5% interest so at least your money is outpacing inflation. I personally have a ING Savings Account.

You could go balls out and try to make millions starting a company, playing poker, or saving beanie babies... But follow these steps (listed in order from most important to least) and you will easily be a millionare, if not multi-millionare, by the time you retire. These steps apply to everyone.

1. Live below your means. This means no matter how much you want or deserve something, if you can't afford it you'll have to survive with less. A lot of people have trouble understanding this.
2. Pay off all credit card debt. No matter how good your investments are, they probably won't make up for the 15-25% interest you are paying on your credit card debts.
3. If you have a 401k available, use it! My work matches up to 6% of my pay. This is a free 6% raise, that will multiply into an even greator amount by the time I touch it. THIS IS FREE MONEY!!!
4. After the 401k, put your money in an IRA account. In college you will want to get a Roth IRA. You will be limited to investing only a few grand a year, but max that out if you can!

That's it. If you start following these 4 steps in college, you will have a millionare by the time you are 60.

For anyone who wants to know more about investing, actually picking individual stocks, or just how to become richer in general (there are no quick and easy ways to become rich), I suggest reading the Motley Fool. Good luck!

You can get 4.35% in a no-risk savings account with no minimum balance, no fees, and online transfers to and from your regular checking account at any other bank, using ING Direct - http://home.ingdirect.com/

ING Direct,

Not only do they provide a 4.30% APY, but they have IMHO the best security measures on the internet. As well they just recently upgraded their login procedures to be even better.

http://www.ingdirect.com/

The other thing you could do is called pyramiding your money. In otherwords you have say 1/4 of your money in a savings account (ING Direct), 1/4 of your money in a 3-6 month CD, 1/4 of your money in a 6-12 month CD, and 1/4 in a 12-24 month CD. When the 3-6 runs out you roll it back into a 3-6 possibly with any extra money you received from your savings account. When the 6-12 runs out you roll in the money (that should expire from the 3-6) into the 6-12. So on and so forth.

It's a great example of how to keep money accessible and take advantage of compounding interest.

Nope, you sold ME.

I only get 4.15% at ING. Who pays 4.32%?

http://www.ingdirect.com/ does something similar. You type in your account number, the answer to a question about you, and then click buttons 1-9 in order to enter your PIN. This foils the keystroke logging spybots.

It's not that hard to make sure you're on the right site, make sure emails are legit, or login securely. All together, a pretty good system. Sure, you can still get tricked into entering your info elsewhere, but then you should probably not be banking online anyways.

It's not that hard to make sure you're on the right site, make sure emails are legit, or login securely. All together, a pretty good system. Sure, you can still get tricked into entering your info elsewhere, but then you should probably not be banking online anyways.

It's not that hard to make sure you're on the right site, make sure emails are legit, or login securely. All together, a pretty good system. Sure, you can still get tricked into entering your info elsewhere, but then you should probably not be banking online anyways.

https://secure4.ingdirect.com/tpw/InitialINGDirect .html?command=displayLogin&device=web&locale=en_US

ING started by notifying customers it was changing, and now it's here.

Any ING customer used to their old login knew they were typing fractions of numbers to begin with. Now they don't type their pin number ever.

I contracted for a company for about 2 years after they had to move me back from full time employment due to money issues. I found it fairly unpleasent except for the fact I loved the work I was doing and the customers I was interacting with. 1) Having to get your own benefits sucks cause they are not as good as ones a company will provide. I sprained my ankle real bad during that time and when I went to get a brace that my doctor recommended, the insurance agency said that my benefits did not cover orthopedic unless I was diabetic or one other condition that I can't remember off hand.(This was Blue Cross/Blue Shield, they had great price on the insurance plan, but that has since changed from what I've heard). 2) Having to pay all of your own Medicare, Social Security, etc is horrible. Be prepared to be reamed. Now sure you can jack up your rate to cover this, but in the end you're still going to be gritting your teeth as you write the quarterly checks to the IRS. 3) Pay your quarterly taxes. Or be prepared to be penalized, though I believe this only happens after the first year. Don't quote me though. 4) To cover the taxes, I would suggest getting a decent savings account with a good percentage. Something like ING Direct's Orange account that offers 2.2% interest. Remember you can reimburse mileage and some other things(Check the IRS website for this) if it exceeds a certain amount. 5) Get an IRA, especially a SEP IRA. I have one called Select Fund, but can't find a link for it now. Will respond when I'm at home and looking at the documents. 6) Get everything in writing. Pay, how many expected hours, what their timeline for when you'd be brought on full time. 7) If you have to work at home, I'm sorry. I found it incredibly boring and lonely. Now being married could make it more enjoyable. Other wise, enjoy and good luck.

Why would you buy a set of shares that are yielding 0.57%, when you could put that money into cash and get 2.1% in an online savings account? (And that's without looking very hard -- I'm an Australian, unfamiliar with US financial products.) Short answer: you wouldn't. So you're buying those shares with the expectation of capital gains.

Now, why do shares appreciate in value? Short answer: the company increases its earnings, or the investing public expects to see an increase in its earnings over the next N years. Ultimately, you would expect to see those earnings paid out as dividends, maybe with some of them kept in the company.

What does this have to do with Microsoft? They're starting to make the transition from a growth company -- one that invests its earnings back into the company, to grow the value of the company so it can earn more money -- into a yield company -- one that pays out a significant chunk of its earnings to its shareholders.

Microsoft needs to pay out a hell of a lot more than it is at the moment to sustain its current share price. I don't see it happening any time soon; the market is close to saturated, and they can't shift as many overpriced boxes of software as they used to. Maybe -- just maybe -- this is where the value of Microsoft's shares start to drop to more realistic levels ...

I'm in Canada, and do most of my banking through either ING Direct and President's Choice Financial. They charge no monthly fees and no transaction fees.

I believe that the U.S. branch of ING Direct is very similar.

You can still do some stuff without paying fees, but it takes a bit of effort.

The answer to the issue is quite simple: Banks list their recommended browsers to avoid headaches. Yes, Lynx with SSL support may work well enough, but who wants to go chasing down the an obscure bug that only affects 0.00001% of their users?

Personally, my credit union has no issue with what browser I use; they had a XHTML issue which I argued with the Mozilla people they should allow (because I thought XHTML was grey when it came to someone does <SELECT><OPTION ... />Option_Display</SELECT>), but this resolved itself when the credit union changed their HTML header. I used to be able to get into Ing Direct with Konqueror, although I am presently having issues with logins (I do not know if it is a Konqueror or ING bug; changing browser idents does not fix the issue). First Union/Wachovia historically has not given me issues, although I no longer have an account there. But all my personal banking can be done through Netscape for Linux without issues.

For an example of a system which dicates browsers strictly, I name the brokerage Scottrade. They say you can *only* use Internet Explorer or Netscape (but fortunately, do not name an operating system). Why do they do this? Well, if you read their terms of service, they specifically name a number of programs that you cannot use, which gather quotes, attempt to place stock trades automatically, etc. Here, there is a clear and valid danger should someone use a malicious client to do trades, etc.

While I have not asked, I'm certain that if you told a company like Scottrade that other *legitamite* web browsers existed, that they might allow them. I think many banks/brokerages/etc. just specify specific browsers because they [1] don't want people calling them about bugs while using XXXX (my transfer didn't go through, and browser Y said it did!) and [2] want the extra legal leg to stand on should someone attempt to compromise their system with an alternative Internet client. Of course, malicious clients can act like they are legitamite ones, but the more legal room the banks think they have, the better they feel about being online.

The basis given in the article for the decision seems more than a little questionable, though:

"PayPal does not physically handle or hold funds placed into the PayPal service," the FDIC said in its letter.

ING Direct no more physically handles or holds my funds placed in their service than PayPal does, yet they fall under the FDIC umbrella.