Saving is all the rage these days. SmartyPig is there to help. Using its one-of-a-kind technology individuals and families can set aside savings to reach certain goals and do it privately or publicly. It's a wonderful way for grandparents to add money to their grand children's savings accounts (that is the public part) and for anyone to save up money for a vacation, special items and even holiday gifts. We all say we are going to do more saving these days and SmartyPig can help us reach that goal.
SmartyPig is FDIC insured up to the maximum allowable amount and has a 3.25% interest rate. It's simple to use too. All you have to do is create an online profile, set up an account and establish a goal. You can meet this goal by having the money automatically deducted from your account each month and even invite friends and family to help you meet your goal all while keeping your information safe and secure. People are using it for weddings, school supplies (those hefty college text books do not come cheap!) and more. SmartyPig is also combining their forces with top retailers such as Best Buy, Amazon and Royal Caribbean. Even better is that these retailers will offer cash incentives with up to 6% of your savings interest when you choose a retailer gift card.
SmartyPig really is simple and smart saving.
MPR Rating: Five Stars.
I'm giving away a $50 SmartyPig gift card to one lucky reader! To enter simply comment with your own savings idea and a winner will be chosen at random on March 20 (ending at noon EST).
10 comments:
My husband and I are saving for our new baby, expected sometime around the first half of August 2009. We would love to also be able to go on a short "babymoon" somewhere before he or she arrives - even if it's somewhere close by like Annapolis. This gift card would be a great way to start saving for that, and would make a HUGE dent toward a night in a hotel. I've given a SmartyPig gift card to my brother in law and his fiance to save for their wedding, and they love it. I hope we can start our own!
We save by having three separate accounts. Two checking and one savings. The paycheck goes in one....we spend what we need for the week on groceries, then transfer the rest into another account. That other account is set up with auto drafts for bills. The third account is our "tithing" account. We don't necessarily "tithe" in the traditional sense, but we do set 10% aside for whatever crosses our path that we feel led to help with.
I've found that once we label money as "bill money" or "tithing money" we are much less likely to touch it for another reason.
give_me_a_latte at yahoo
My three keys to saving (with a child):
1) Consignment sales! The great thing about these are, for me, the clothes for my daughter. There are so many nice things that often still have tags on them. It's the season again for them too.
2) Every month we have a certain amount immediately debited from our checking and put into our savings when we get paid. Sometimes we have to dip back into this fund. Usually we don't. I think if we didn't put it there, we'd probably spend it.
3) I'm a shopaholic so I have a 24 hour rule. This is easier now that I have no time to shop in stores and usually shop online. If I want something over $50 (for me or the baby), I wait 24 hours. If I still want it, I usually buy it. You'd be surprised how much shopping this eliminates.
Email is jessicareedbradley at yahoo dot com
This would go toward that house downpayment we're working on.
I save 75-80% each week at the grocery store by using coupons and stockpiling sale items. The sales go in cycles. Eventually your pantry is stocked.
There are so many ways to save if only people learn that they don't need everything. 1)Shop on sale days and print fre coupons off the internet, they are not that hard to find. 2) Shop at thrift stores. This can do a couple of things for you. You get clothes, dishes, pr whatever for cheaper and often they are just as nice as getting them at the retail store. Also, you can find awesome things that are worth much more here and then sell them on craigslist or ebay. These places are full of treasures to resell. Yuo can even go get a cheap basket there for 50 cents find some cool wash clothes, or candles or bath stuff which had not been used and they do sell for about 2 dollars, put together a basket and sell it on etsy or whatever. Makes a lot of money and is fun too. The other thing you can do is look on craigslist in the free section. My aunt had gotten tons of nice stuff there and for fre. She just recently got a nice couch set which she steamcleaned and it was gerogeous, and free. Also you can get these free things and resell them on ebay. Just a couple of ideas.
I think the biggest way to cut down on our spending has simply been to NOT shop anymore. I mean, I used to go and browse all the time...that's when I wound up buying things I didn't REALLY need, but wanted. Now, if I can't see it, well then, I won't WANT it. Thanks for the giveaway. ceegeebeegee at yahoo dot com
We save by:
not using our refrigerator.
not having a car
turning the thermostat way down
cooking all of our food from scratch
pinkveganmiso(at)yahoo(dot)com
We save by not using any change we get period, if we have a bill for say 19.13 and pay a $20 the .87 cents we get goes straight into a jar for saving when we get a full jar. It fills up monthly, you would be surprised how much money in change we save a month.
mommyhoodisthankless[AT}gmail.com
Our biggest money saver so far has been sitting down each Saturday to come up with a weekly menu of dinners prior to making the trip to the grocery store. Prior to this we'd make the usual list of items that we thought we'd need and we thought we'd use during the week. Inevitably we'd end up buying a bunch of processed microwave meals, going out to eat too many times, and throwing away food that had gone bad long ago 'cause we never used it. Planning out meals for the whole week helps us keep organized and has saved us about 20% on our grocery bills for the past month.
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