The Sun’s Financial Diary

After having been cut rates continuously since last September when the Federal Reserve began the current rate reduction campaign, some banks seem to start to reverse course in order to compete for our money even when the Fed is idle.
Since April, E-Trade Financial and HSBC Direct each bumped up the interest rate of their savings [...]

I have been considering getting a new online savings account with a better rate for quite a while. The banks I am using right now (IGoBanking and FNBO Direct) are OK, but their rates are not as competitive as they used to be. After looking around and evaluating potential candidates such as Countrywide Bank, Provident [...]

I can host them for you here on this blog!
When I published my ING Direct Orange Savings Account $25 signup bonus post on April 27, I thought it could be a while before all the 25 referral links are taken because, ING Direct, as well as this referral problem, has been around for a long [...]

It has been more than four months since I last updated my little interest rates table. During this four-month period, the rate picture of online banks has changed a lot, going down 5% something to mostly in the neighborhood of 3% APY, as the Fed cut interest rates every time they met. However, the latest [...]

Do you want an ING Direct Orange Savings Account or Electric Orange Checking Account? Get rewarded by using any ING referral bonus link to open an account and receive $25 bonus.
This product has been around long enough (probably one of the oldest online savings accounts) and I feel that anyone who wants to have an [...]

I was really impressed the other day when I found out that Provident Direct, a little known online bank, was offering 4.50% APY with their high-yield savings account, when everybody else was paying almost a full percentage point less. At that time, I was thinking of getting a new account if they won’t dramatically lower [...]

Not long ago, you can easily find an online bank that pay above 5% APY for your money. For example, from my last rate update at the end of 2007 (I didn’t update the list since them because banks kept lowering their rates even , you could get a 5.12% APY from UFB Direct or [...]

I have been automatically transferring a certain amount of money from our checking account to savings account on payday for quite a while. At first, $300 was moved every two weeks from our checking account at Bank of America to savings account at Emigrant Direct as part of our “pay ourselves first” strategy in order [...]

I am and I can’t think of any reason why not using it as long as I have a bank account. It’s safe (I don’t have to worry about losing the check) and it’s fast (there’s no delay for the money to show up in my account). However, it appears that not everybody is using [...]

More bonus for using my referral links!
I have accounts with many banks, brokers, and online shopping rewards sites, etc., and some of them offer benefits for referring a new customer. If you need a referral for the following programs, please use the contact form to send me an email with a valid email address and [...]