SmartyPig®: Posts tagged 'savings'

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May 5, 2008 • Posted by Jon Gaskell: A Smarter Choice for Stimulus Checks; While the federal government is hoping some 116 million American families waste no time spending their rebates from the Economic Stimulus Package, SmartyPig is an alternative for consumers who wish to do their part to boost the economy while also getting more for their money... and reinforcing the benefits of good financial habits through disciplined savings.

For consumers, this means that a $1,200 rebate check put toward a SmartyPig savings goal for just 90 days would result in an additional $12 or so in interest (at our current APY). Add that to a 5% cash incentive boost from a top retailer (retailers and boosts vary), as well as three minimum monthly deposits of $25 (a user must have a goal he or she is actively saving for), and Mr. John Q. Taxpayer suddenly has more than $1,350 instead of $1,200 to help stimulate the economy.

Now, if Mr. or Mrs. Taxpayer has two children and wants to create a goal for next holiday season, his or her $1,800 rebate check put toward a SmartyPig savings goal for 7 months would result in an additional $43 or so in interest. Add that to a 5% cash incentive boost from a top retailer, as well as seven minimum monthly deposits of $25, and Mr. or Mrs. Taxpayer suddenly has $2,119 instead of $1,800 to help stimulate the economy and NO credit card debt come January.

SmartyPig was created to make saving money a fun and educational experience for individuals and families alike. If we have to save the economy, as well, so be it.; Tags: savings • budgeting • economic stimulus check • tax rebate check • savings account
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April 21, 2008 • Posted by Jon Gaskell

When Pigs Fly

SmartyPig is getting terrific buzz. Awesome blog reviews and national coverage have led to an extraordinary amount of interest, which has led to a surprising number of customers and a high level of deposits. Exactly what we want. Just one problem: the transaction engine that moves your money into SmartyPig has a cap on the amount of money it will move in any one 24-hour period. Good news is you are making enough transactions to hit the cap. Bad news is, well, you're making enough transactions to hit the cap.

And, as Murphy's law prevails, we hit it over the weekend (when the 24-hour period is actually bundled into Saturday and Sunday); and customer support from the company that controls the transaction engine wasn't as supportive as we needed - kind of like getting the answering service when you really need to talk to the doctor. So as some tried to open accounts, add money to their goals or had automatic deposits scheduled, the error messages started popping up and the emails to our customer support center started coming in. We have spent the better part of the day trying to contact each individual who was inconvenienced to apologize and to let them know all is back to normal.

Tags: smartypig

• savings

• savings account

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