My Finances and Saving System With ING Direct

Posted by The Happy Rock on December 11, 2008

I have said it before, but I love ING Direct and I have the accounts to prove it. I have an Electric Orange Checking Account, ING Direct Savings, and an Orange Mortgage all through ING. Here are 5 reasons I like their products:

Their web interface is a joy to use and they are constantly improving it
Customer service has been great
All the accounts play nicely and instantly together
Very good interest on savings and checking balances
Simple and straightforward. ING doesn’t like to play games with fees or complexity.

My System

Both paychecks are direct deposited into our checking account where it starts earning a solid interest immediately. I pay bills as necessary out of the checking account using free bill pay or their free online paper check writing. The only transferring I do during the month is for The Rockette’s incoming checks where I transfer 40% into a ‘Taxes’ savings account and transfer the rest into our house down payment fund or whatever savings goal is at the top of the list. We try hard to live and pay all of our expenses and even do some saving out of my salary so that we have flexibility regarding jobs and money if and when we need it. At the end of the month I will not only pay the few bills I have due, but I will also transfer our agreed upon amounts into their appropriate savings cubby hole.

It is these cubby holes that endears this system to my soul, since I love it when everything has a nice neat home. ING Direct lets you create as many savings accounts as you want with the just the click of a few buttons. I currently have 14 savings account.

How come so many? Let me list a few of the accounts so you can get a flavor for what I am doing.

Emergency Fund
Taxes 2008
Property Taxes
Auto Insurance
Auto Maintenance
Gifts
Replacement Car Fund
House Down Payment
Frank’s Stash (Birthday money and such)
Entrepreneur Income/Expenses
Replacement TV Fund

I think the category titles speak for themselves, but let’s take a closer look at a few accounts to see how it all works. For Property Taxes, each month I transfer ~$250 from checking into that account. Every third month instead of transferring in, I transfer the money back to checking and pay the quarterly bill. Simple, clean, easy to manage, and I also get a free $10 of interest for working it that way. Same setup for Auto Insurance. I transfer 1/12 of the cost(~$90) each month and then once a year I transfer out and pay the bill. I earn interest and avoid any service charges for monthly payments. I think you get the drift. I am willing to answer any questions about certain accounts or the system if there are any.

Benefits of the system

Here are the key points that I love about the system.

Everything is there in one spot, easy to access, easy to see. This makes things like preparation for the monthly budget meeting a snap because all I have to do is print the accounts page and you can see where all our money is.
It is simple. No weird gyrations to get extra interest or avoid fees. It takes almost no energy or thought once the system is set up. Financial auto pilot is a great feeling since it frees you to think about answering the bigger questions about money and life.
Transfers are instant between all accounts. No lost interest or account instability while the payments transfer.
Paperless
It fits my personality. I brings a calmness to my finances…well it is probably the no debt except the mortgage and a fully funded emergency fund that gives me the peace, but the system does connect with how I like to do and see things. Finance is personal and this system won’t work for everybody, but your system should definitely align with who you are and how you like to do things.

That’s how The Happy Rock is working his money right now. How about you? Any questions? Any glaring holes in my system or areas for improvement?

*Note – ING does offer a free $25 for opening a savings or checking account with minimum $250 deposit on referalls. I would also get a free $10, if I refer you. Contact Me if you would like to recieve the offer.

» Filed Under Finance Software, ING Electric Orange, Personal Finance Systems

Does TurboTax, TaxCut And Other DIY Tax Software Really Save You Money?

Posted by The Happy Rock on January 13, 2008

The obvious answer is…….Yes! The not so obvious answer is that it might cost me well over $300 dollars this year.

First, the software can usually be purchased for next to nothing after rebates or through other programs. SlickDeals is a great way to scour the net for a deal on the software you want.

The other factor to take into account is your time and stress in having to deal with taxes yourself. The time and stress will be extremely personal decisions that we each must measure for ourselves. The only thing I will say is that the software tends to be fairly straightforward and not as scary of some people might think.

Finally, the last thing to take into account is the risk and cost of mistakes. I can tell you from first hand experience that making one honest mistake can quickly destroy years of frugality. I am currently fighting to lessen the fines from not realizing that I had to pay state taxes by April 15th, even when you file for extension.

We were waiting on the social security number for our son after his adoption was finalized, so I filed extensions for both sets of taxes. Everything was fine until a few months ago the NJ Division of Taxation sends me a bill for over $300 dollars in interest and late penalties. This is over 30% penalty considering that the bill was about $900 dollars. Silly honest mistake that I really should have known better, but hopefully NJ will remove the late penalties and the bill will be under $100 dollars. A severe mistake could increase your risk of getting audited which would most likely cost you much more in stress and fees for representation.

I am not here to get everyone to their local CPA, but I want everyone to consider all the sides when deciding between tax software and using a professional. I may still do my own taxes again this year, but I will make sure I am a bit more careful if I don’t use a professional. More and more I am learning the effeciencies that come from focusing on your own area of expertise and letting other focus on theirs. That is great in theory until you have to shell out $200 to get your taxes done. I will follow up our decision as it gets closer to tax time.

» Filed Under Finance Software, Frugality, Money Savers

Contest Winner : Quicken Deluxe 2007

Posted by The Happy Rock on August 16, 2007

Remember the second round of contests I posted last week in the learning from others post. Well, yours truly, won a copy of Quicken Deluxe 2007. Shelley Elmblad @ The Personal Budgeting section of Suite 101 sent me the good news yesterday. I quickly responded with my address, and the software will ship tomorrow. Perfect, just as I was having some troubles with Microsoft Money I will get to try out its main competitor. Hopefully the Money import feature works well!

Who says they never win anything? A couple of minutes returned a $39.99 piece of software. Did any other readers win a copy, there were 10 to give away?

» Filed Under Finance Software

Recovering From The Microsoft Money Server Upgrade

Posted by The Happy Rock on August 10, 2007

I cleared a hurdle I had been putting off for about three weeks now; I spent about two hours tonight bringing my Microsoft Money records back up to date. It was two hours I didn’t have, but two hours that were sorely needed. In mid July Microsoft decided that their Money servers need a complete overhaul. Since that time I haven’t been able to download my transactions for my ING Electric Orange checking, savings, or my one credit card. With the July Cash Spending Experiment in full swing, I wasn’t too worried about it since my normal way of operating wasn’t needed. Now with July over, I finally needed to bite the bullet and fix what they broke.

To be honest I did spend about 20 minutes searching for better personal finance software options, and thought about upgrading from Money 2005 to 2007. I didn’t switch or upgrade, because I honestly don’t have the time and energy to invest in learning a new tool. Plus I have three years of budgeting and finance information in Money format. I would love to entertain any reader suggestions about possible good transition software from Money. With that said, Money suites my needs fine.

After some minor frustration and keyboard pounding I was able to trick Money into being able to access my accounts again. The big tip was to go to the financial institutions and download the transactions manually to help Money learn. Believe it or not, it really helped. Once that was done, I had probably 100 transactions to reconcile and categorize. That is my favorite feature of personal finance software. It really helps my conceptualize and track how much money we are spending and were it is going. Money can also do some simple charts which not only look pretty, but can serve as good marriage communication tool. I finally finished up by taking care of some bills.

I could have really used the two hours for other activities, but it really feels good to have that squared away again. The next big task is to square away the pile of receipts from all the July cash spending, and see if we actually saved any money.

» Filed Under Experiments, Finance Software, Personal Finance Systems, Productivity(Financial)