For this weeks Works For Me Wednesday I have decided to share with you a little secret that I have known about for a long time, and more recently got my husband to jump on board. This little secret has helped me immensely, and has allowed me to do and buy things I didn’t think I would be able to afford. What is this little secret you ask? It’s the ING Direct savings funds! 

You may be asking yourself…Why I think I’m so special? ING has been around for a while? And you are right! It has! But I don’t just have 1 savings account, I have like 7 of them! Basically what I do is I start a fund for whatever I will need money for down the line. For example, I have had many weddings to attend and be a part of. So in order to be able to pay for all that, a few years ago I started a “wedding” ING fund. Every other week $25 comes out of my main bank account and into my “wedding fund”, and over time that amount grows and I am able to pay for bridesmaid dresses, and bachelorette parties with that money, so that when the time comes to need it, I won’t feel the burden on my main account. It’s wonderful!

My husband and I decided one year we wanted to go away to a Carribean Island over New Years. So we figured out about how much we’d need and divided that by how many months we had till the trip. It worked out that if we each put $25/week away into the fund, that we would have our trip paid for by the time we wanted to book! It worked out wonderfully! Again, we didn’t feel the the $25 from our account every week. In reality if you just didn’t go out for lunch  and packed that covered it! And when it was time to go, our trip was paid for!

I have accounts to pay for the down payment of my next car, Christmas Presents, Presents for my husband, weddings, and vacations. We also have more long term savings there with our wedding gift money as well as the generous financial wedding gift my parents gave us. We keep this all separate from our “everyday” money so that in the future we can buy something special with it. And we will know where the money came from. Plus, ING probably has the best interest rates out there…even compared to CD’s. My husband and I even made a separate fund to put the wedding gifts from our friends who’s weddings we had this year…their money was pretty much a loan since we will give the same amount back to them..so we plopped it all into an account and when their weddings come up we just use that money there!

Now for the part where you can get FREE MONEY! That’s right I will repeat…FREE MONEY!!! All you have to do is contact me (you can get my info through this site) and let me know you are ready to sign up for ING. If you deposit at least $250 into a savings account, and that money stays in that account for 30 days you will get a $25 BONUS! Plus, I get $10 for referring you. That’s right! FREE $25 just for being referred by an existing customer! I have the links ready to send you, so when you are ready, contact me and we’ll get you that FREE MONEY!

So there you have it…my little secret. It takes no time at all to sign up for an account and it’s all done online. It links to your bank account and you can easily transfer money to and from each account when you want. This method certainly works for me, and if you think it through…I think it will certainly work for you too!