All good things must come to an end

I’ve been a saver for as long as I can remember and while I love watching my cash grow, my saving sprees tend to be goal oriented. As a child, I would save up my Dad’s spare change for book purchases, or as a teen I diligently put away baby-sitting money for tuition fees, and as a summer intern, I’d stash away my salaries for European travels during my semesters abroad.  

It comes as no surprise then that I’m in love with ING. Their motto of “save your money” speaks to my soul in the same way that Madonna’s music does. In addition to switching from CIBC to ING's THRIVE chequing account and a having Registered Investment Savings Plan with them, I have several savings accounts that receive automatic deposits with each pay cheque.  My favourite part of their savings accounts is that I can give each account a cute nickname and establish a goal for the account. ING then sets up a bar graph to show me how I’m doing and their CEO, Peter R. Aceto even e-mails me to congratulate me when I’ve reached my goal. 

At the moment, I have 5 savings accounts: one for a cash down payment on our next home, another for vacations, one for Fergie & Fernando should they need unexpected vet care, another for Christmas gifts, and finally an emergency stash that also covers out of pocket medical bills like my glasses or enormous bulk purchases of Reactin from Costco.

This morning I went to set-up another 2 savings accounts: one for our wedding in summer 2013 and the other for a king size bed. The only problem? A giant error messaged appeared announcing that ING limits the amount of savings accounts you can have. Darn! While I appreciate the other accounts that ING offers, they don’t suit my savings needs and I really love having one account per goal.  

In one Error message, ING broke up with me.
It's almost as bad as doing it via text message!

What’s a girl to do? I’m considering taking out the cash each month and stashing it into two giant piggy banks, but this seems unpractical. 

My love affair with ING savings accounts has reached its peak, and I’m going to have to look elsewhere for my savings options. I feel like I’m about to cheat on  my favourite bank, but then again, ING is the one who is ending our relationship out of the blue. 

*Rosie*

Caught in a bad romance

My love affair with my new ING chequing account has hit it's first rocky period. You'll remember that I first swooned over ING chequing when they offered me $100 to switch my payroll deposits to their account, guaranteed $0 of monthly banking fees, and had several ATMs within walking distance to my house and office. Compared to the price I was paying to be CIBC's customer, switching seemed like an easy thing to do. After all, it was love at first sight.

Now that I've been an ING chequing customer for 8 weeks, the honeymoon period is over and I'm starting to notice the account's quirks. The greatest nuisance at the moment is the lack of access to e-mail money transfers. As described below ING offers free e-mail money transfers for account holders to send money to clients and non-clients of ING.



What is missing from the "fine print" is the ability to be
paid back by a friend quickly and easily.



But what if the account holder is owed money by a friend who is not banking with ING? I did stumble upon this glitch last month when I received my first automatic e-mail money transfer from a friend who banks with BMO and discovered that I couldn't deposit the money into my ING account. At the time, an ING rep explained to me that they are being purposely excluded from the money transfer network that currently includes RBC, CIBC, TD, BMO, and PC Financial. Apparently, these banks are trying to make it inconvenient for ING account holders to do business outside their network.

What's a financially fabulous ING chequing account user to do?

The big banks are definitely succeeding as I've received yet another e-mail money transfer this month and once again, relied on my Eye Candy to deposit it into his CIBC chequing account and then write me a cheque. Fortunately, I can trust him and he knew correctly the name of my sister's first hamster so the transfer was quite simple. But if I didn't have my Eye Candy around to shuffle funds for me, I'd be going back and forth with friends requesting cheques and waiting on snail mail. This seems like a step backwards in the era of mobile banking.

I've called in again to ING to express my frustration and I have their assurances that they are continuing to negotiate to be part of the interac e-transfer system. Until then, I will have to rely upon my Eye Candy's loyalty to his CIBC chequing account and hope he doesn't start to charge me transaction fees.

Has anyone else made the switch to ING? How are you liking it?

*Rosie*

ING has extended their $100 bonus

Good news! I realize that when I wrote last month about my decision to switch my CIBC chequing account (which charged me $13 for the pleasure of using their services) to an ING Thrive chequing account (which gave me $100 to thank me for being their customer), I didn't leave you much time to make the switch as well. 

Fortunately, ING has extended their promotion so if you open an ING Thrive account and have your payroll automatically deposited into it by August 31st, you'll receive $100 bonus. The best part is that there are no monthly fees, free first batch of 50 cheques, free ATM access, and several other wonderful benefits explained in full here. To set up my account, to add my payees and to send in the paperwork to my HR department, it took less than 20 minutes. In the words of Gwen Stefani, what are you waiting for?

I must ask, what are you waiting for? photo source

I have been a fan of ING's savings accounts for years (mostly because I can nickname the account anything I want) and I am now pleased to be doing my daily banking with them. Using their handy ABM locator (available online or on your iPhone as an Ap), I have found 2 machines within a 2 minute walk to work and 1 behind my condo building. So the inability to access your cash quickly is no longer an excuse not to bank with ING. 

The only hiccup that I have found so far is in regards to e-mail money transfers. I did receive one recently from a friend who banks with the Bank of Montreal and when I accepted the e-mail link, I could only deposit the money into a CIBC, RBC, TD Bank, PC Financial, or BMO account. I phoned into ING to explain this dilemma and they took my call within 35 seconds. The rep explained that at a head office level, ING is working to be added onto this network list, but for now, the big banks are purposely excluding them. She said that their service and products are so good that the other banks are going out of their way to make the lives of ING clients difficult whenever they can. I found her explanation to be amusing, although not that helpful. My Eye Candy has not made the switch to ING as he has several automatic payees each month from his account that makes the $100 bonus not worth the aggravation so I simply deposited my friend's e-mail money transfer into his CIBC account and he wrote me a cheque. This is the only setback that I have experienced so far using ING chequing and in the grand scheme of things, it is not a big deal.

While you're at the ING site setting up your chequing account, why not start a savings account too? And if you're related to me, I suggest you call the account Cuba! or Havana Nights and start contributing $25 weekly to begin saving for our family fun vacation next April. The best is yet to come as if you use my Orange Key number 31643528S1 and deposit $100, ING will give you $25 and me $25. We will both $25 closer to the sand, sea, and sunshine.

No riddle me this, when was the last time someone gave you free money? 

*Rosie*