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Earn Up To $100 In Bonuses With U.S. Bank’s New Spend-And-Save Program

Posted in Budgeting by RateRunner
January 2, 2010 10:50 AM - 1 Comments

Having money automatically added to your savings account each time you buy something is one way to put something aside for the future.

Now U.S. Bank has come up with one of the best spend-and-save programs we’ve seen.

It’s more generous and flexible than other programs, allowing you to build a bigger balance and rewarding your efforts with up $100 in bonuses.

The “Savings Today And Rewards Tomorrow” or S.T.A.R.T. program is available to anyone with a U.S. Bank checking and money market account.

Everytime you use your debit or credit card money is transferred from your checking to money market account.

The program transfers whatever amount you choose — anywhere from 25 cents to $5 — from your checking account to your MMA each time you buy something with a U.S. Bank debit or credit card.

If you have a U.S. Bank FlexPerks Cash Rewards Visa Credit Card or FlexPerks Cash Rewards Visa Check Card, you can have your monthly FlexPerks Cash Rewards deposited in your money market account.

You can also arrange for regular transfers each week or month, corresponding to when you get paid.

There’s no limit on how many transfers you can make or how much you can move each month.

After you’ve accumulated $1,000, U.S. Bank will give you a bonus — a $50 U.S. Bank Rewards Visa Card.

Maintain a balance of $1,000 or more for a year, and you’ll earn another $50 Rewards Card.

Once you’ve signed up for S.T.A.R.T., your monthly bank statement will list how much you’ve saved using the program.

The average return on money market accounts is a pathetic 0.23%. U.S. Bank is paying anywhere from 0.15% to 1.0% on its MMAs, depending on where you live.

But that doesn’t negate the point of these programs, which is turn you into a regular saver even if the process is a little gimmicky.

S.T.A.R.T. allows you to save much more than a typical “Keep the Change” program, which rounds up each purchase to the nearest dollar and transfers the extra coin from your checking to savings account.

It also allows you to set aside more than similar spend-and-save programs such as Wachovia’s “Way2Save,” which limits transfers to $1 per transaction.

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  1. Mike M said:
    on January 5th at 10:28 am

    I took advantage of this deal – yes, the quoted interest rates are rather poor. However, you can put $1000 into the account immediately, thus earning the first $50. Then set up the automated transfer in… and after it completes each month, you can transfer the money back out, keeping that balance just above $1000. Then after a year, get your other $50. If you take your first $50 and put it into a “high” yield savings account elsewhere and earn 1.5% on it, your total APR is rather impressive (yes, I know you get the $50 as a gift card, but you can put $50 into savings that you otherwise would have spent).

    Net, you can earn $100.75 in total interest ($50 at the end of the year, $50 at the beginning, plus $.75 in interest on that first $50) in a year on $1000 in savings.

    That’s an APR of 10.075%. You won’t find a one-year CD anywhere near that rate. Of course, keeping more than $1000 in that account is doing nothing but lowering your rate of return.

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