Savings Account Advice

[featherbrain]

Hi all,

This is my first post to this forum, and I am very new to working with finances (being a college student, it wasn't very long ago that my only financial thoughts were putting my birthday money into my bank account!).
I have a pretty basic question about savings accounts. I currently have a free checking account with Regions and a savings account with Ally. My savings rate is 0.87% compounded monthly (no requirements, I currently make no regular deposits). I just found out about Regions' saving accounts which is only 0.01% monthly, but you get a bonus 1.00% if you deposit $10 for 12 consequtive months. They will set up an automatic monthly deposit from my checking to savings account so I won't even have to think about it. My question is: should I stick wth my current (Ally) savings account (which rarely, if ever, gets a deposit, but earns steady interest) or should I go with Regions which essentially only gets interest once a year but gets deposits without me having to think about it? If I did the math correctly with my current savings amount, if I were to make $10 monthly deposits into my Ally savings, I would come out about $100 less than the Regions after 10 years. So basically the difference is VERY little over 10 years, but I wanted to get some advice in case there is something besides the raw numbers that I am overlooking.
Thanks!

[bjl584]

It's not worth the hassle for the amount of money that you are talking about. I'd stay with the account that you have.

[MonkeyMama]

Odds are you would not stick with a bank for 10 years anyway, so would not bother. Some other bank (many other banks) will offer better interest rates and terms, in the interim.

[scfr]

I am all in favor of pursuing bank bonuses, but in the case you have outlined I don't think it's worth it. I pursue bank bonuses but don't think in terms as long as 10 years (unless it's a 10-year CD). I only think as long as it takes to earn & keep the first bonus which in this case is 1 year.

You are already earning 0.87% which is pretty good given today's low-interest-rate environment, and a 1% interest bonus just isn't that much.

If you were talking about a flat-out $100 bonus after a year then it would be a different story, since $100 is nothing to sneeze at (would pay for a textbook or two).

To check to see if there might be better bonuses available for you, check out the web site DepositAccounts.com

Finally, I just wanted to say good job thinking about how to best make your money work for you at a relatively "young" age.

[snafu]

It's likely that you can create an automatic, monthly transfer from your Region chequing account to your Ally Savings account, easy peasy, few key strokes. Terrific idea to get in the habit of savings now so that 'paying yourself first,' becomes part of your money management.

[featherbrain]

Thank you guys so much for the advice! My gut was telling me to stick with what I had versus having to go through the hassel of setting up a new account with little return. I will look into setting up automatic deposits into my savings account--anything to make saving automatic is great!