iKaushal

Today I came to know about a Wachovia savings scheme that is really lucrative and can help you earn interest like never before by not doing anything special…. just the normal gas and groceries/dining purchases.

Here is the Wachovia link if you’d like to learn more about it. I don’t know whether that is a permanent link. If the link doesn’t work for you, please let me know and I’ll remove it. In that case you can go to wachovia.com, and click on the Savings & CDs link under the category of Banking. On that page, you should see the link to Way2Save.

So here’s the deal:

• You get a free Way2Save Savings account with no maintenance fee (for 1st year and thereafter with qualified transactions (automatic transfers), otherwise $5.00.) and no min required balance.
• Every time (doesn’t matter how many times a day) you use your Wachovia debit or check card for a purchase (any purchase for which you might be regularly using a credit card … I’ll come back to that.), a dollar is transferred from your Checking account to the Way2Save account.
• Also whenever a payment for your credit cards, utility bills, etc is electronically debited from your Checking account, a dollar is transferred similarly.
• Also you can set an automatic debit from your Checking to Way2Save account to transfer up to $100 every month.
• … … and you earn 5%, 2%, 2% and the usual Savings Interest APR for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and later years respectively. PLUS Wachovia gives you 5%, 2%, 2% bonus on the amount transferred to Way2Save for 1st, 2nd and 3rd years respectively.

It sounds too good to be true, but it is true. Try out the Savings Calculator on Wachovia’s site to find out the estimate earning in interest at the end of 1, 2 or 3 years. To know more details on the interest earned, bonus earned and Fees that Wachovia can extract from you, go to the Way2Save Account Agreement page and take note of points 5, 6 and especially Way2Save Fees section after point 9. I forgot to ask the bank representative as to what exactly are defined as qualified transactions (to avoid monthly $5 fee after 1st year), but I think I won’t have to worry I have anyways planned to transfer $100 to Way2Save automatically every month.

For the people who are used to using credit cards for routine transactions (like me), I just thought over it and worked out the estimate earnings and realized that I am not earning THAT much from the 1% money back on my current Chase card. People with 5% cash back or better cards may not find this that lucrative, but for me with an estimate of at least 1 check card use every day, 7 electronic payments every month (I fully pay my credit cards twice a month + utility bills) and $100 monthly transfer, I am earning $336 and building up my savings to $5304 from ground-zero when the savings started; using the above calculator link.

After those 3 years, I’ll simply close this account and transfer the funds to a money market account.

I think this plan will work great for me, for you too, I guess.