Are you reaching your money saving goals? Are you on track with your finances? If not, then you might want to consider looking into SmartyPig. This is a free online financial savings program that allows you to set your own financial goals. Unlike any other online savings account, with SmartyPig you can get others involved with your goals. Instead of getting into the intricate details of a online savings account and start worrying about chasing minor interest rates, let’s look at how SmartyPig can help YOU with your money saving goals:
You get social with your goals.
The Facebook/blog widgets allow you to share your goals with your social circle. You set a money savings goal and you allow others to follow your progress. I’ve seen this widget on a few personal finance blogs, and I found it to be pretty cool. I’ve also seen this done on Facebook with weight loss goals (this takes lots of courage!) and I was impressed. Who cares if I’m impressed because this presents two logical questions…
What’s the point of this? What’s the point of being social with your money saving goals?
It creates accountability. By allowing others to follow your journey to reaching your money saving goals, your social circle inherently begins to hold you accountable for your actions. I don’t know about you guys, but I hate letting people down. Especially people that believe in me.
You remain focused. We tend to set arbitrary goals: “I want to lose 10 lbs” or “I want to save $15,000.” Well that’s great and all, but what are you doing to meet these goals? Usually nothing. By having your goals right smack in your face you’re forced to at least think about them, and hopefully act on them.
Easy to access your money.
The one thing that I love about my ING Direct account is the easy-to-use customer interface. I don’t care about the intricate details that go beyond running a savings account, I just want to access MY money. With a SmartyPig account, you can access your money from anywhere in the world, and from your cell phone (in between sending texts to plan your night).
Free cash offers.
With SmartyPig you can earn up to 12% on your money when you decide to convert your savings to a gift card from one of their certified retailers. You can get an extra 60 bucks when you decide to get a $500 gift from iTunes (or any other one of their retailers). If you don’t have financial control, this could lead you to acquiring unnecessary gift cards. However, if you already shop at one of these places, you could reap the benefits of one of these cash offers.
Note: Unfortunately, due to being based out of Canada, I’m unable to sing up for an account with this company. Thankfully, I was able to speak with a few of my readers/blogging colleagues about the SmartyPig savings account to learn more about it, to pass along to you guys. Of course, this type of online savings account is not for everyone. Read the fine print to ensure that this account meets what YOU want.
If you are interested, don’t forget to SIGN UP for a SmartyPig Savings Account or check out my SmartyPig Review.
I'm a 24 year old dude that studied finance in school and now wants to make it fun. Over the past three years I've been helping readers like YOU make more money and keep more cash in your pocket. I've appeared live on Fox Business News and I've been mentioned in the NY Times.
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I loved Smarty Pig…we used them for our emergency fund and tax account until I cashed them out to pay off our car loan. We’ll be opening more goals with them next month! My little suggestion is to create $5000 goals so that you don’t have to cash out your whole $10,000 or whatever emergency fund to pay for a $3000 emergency…
I just read on a fellow PF blogger’s site that publicizing your goals makes you 10-20% more likely to actually meet them! Seems like this is a theme for the day.
I have found that since I started my blog, not only have I continued to learn more about PF, but I have also started to manage my money even better.