I want to give you (yes, you) money

Ok, honestly, I'd been thinking about posting this well before I left for a week, but now's as good a time as any to tell you all about it.

So here's how to get the free money: if you sign up for an Orange Savings account with ING Direct using me as a referral, ING Direct will give you a $25 account opening bonus. I'm not being totally selfless here: I also get a $10 referral bonus if you sign up. That's a pretty good deal, though: you get $25, I get $10. If you're interested, shoot me an email: my Gmail account name is aliotsy (original, I know). Be sure to include your first and last name.

Here are the details (because I know you think this sounds fishy): ING Direct is the online branch of ING Group, one of the largest financial institutions in the world. Since it's an online operation with low overhead, they have an insanely great annual percentage yield (APY): 3.30% at the time of this writing, which is over three times higher than the national average, and well above my credit union's respectable savings rate as well. It doesn't sound like much, but it's nice to see that extra bit of cash added to your account at the beginning of every month. There's even this ticker that tells you how much interest you've earned so far. There are some other online operations that offer an even better rate, but none of them seem to be backed by institutions as trustworthy as the ING Group.

The whole set up is pretty nice. You link your ING Direct account with your current checking account, so you don't need to switch banks. For most banks, there's no charge for transferring funds, either (I don't know of any that DO charge, to be honest).

I've seen some people gripe about the fact that it typically takes 2 business days to deposit money, and that there's a 5-day hold on withdrawing everything after a deposit. Personally, I like this: it discourages me from withdrawing on a whim, and forces me treat my savings account as, well, a savings account.

There's no minimum balance either, so you can start with as little as $1 (maybe even less, though I personally wouldn't try that). What's to keep you, then, from signing up, depositing a dollar, getting your bonus, and then withdrawing everything? Nothing, as far as I can tell. But I figure after you take a look at that interest ticker and see how quickly your balance grows, you'll want to stick around.

For long-term savings, you're probably much better off elsewhere: I figure even a very conservative investment in mutual funds would be smarter. But for savings that you'd want fairly quick and easy access to (say, a "rainy day" account), ING Direct is pretty good way to go. Again, if you're interested, shoot me an email.