• Tweet ^[1]
• Email ^[2]

• Tweet ^[1]
• Email ^[2]

I recently read that ING Direct was offering an 18-month Certificate of Deposit with a 4.50% APY (courtesy of Bank Deals) so I logged into my account to see how my CDs were configured. I have our emergency fund fully laddered into CDs ^[3] at ING Direct so I knew that the 18-month CD was going to be outside the range, but I was curious how things were anyway.

Here’s a screenshot of my ING account:

You can see the link in the red box above, if you click on the link the page that opens is one that lists all their current CD rates ^[4] with a 0.10% “bonus.” To take advantage of the bonus, you’ll have to go back to your CD, click Account Maintenance, and change your account maturity option back to renew into a different term.

Lesson of the day? Always turn off automatic renewal so that ING can offer you a 0.10% bonus.

Finally, the eagle eyes in the crowd may notice two things from that screenshot:

1. Only 11 CDs: That’s because you always have one month stored as cash, as the 11th CD matures you open up another one for a year.
2. Two Orange Savings Accounts, one named Main and one named Firewall: The Firewall account is linked to my PayPal account and the balance is always kept at $1 (I think it’s like $15 right now). The idea of an account firewall ^[5] is something I instituted a long time ago and that I still take advantage of. I know people who have like half a dozen accounts, all saving for different things.