Opened a SmartyPig savings account - 3.25% APY!

SmartyPig.com is a new form of online bank. You can open savings accounts for specific goals and specify a monthly savings amount that will be automatically deducted from a traditional bank checking account. You can have more than one savings account and more than one savings goal and create them as you need them.

SmartyPig is currently paying 3.25% APY interest, better than all traditional bank savings accounts, including most CDs, and that is FDIC insured.

I just opened my first SmartyPig savings account today with a "retirement" savings goal 15 years from now, that translates into a $10 per month contribution.

I need to look into how suitable SmartyPig is for "parking" modeerate piles of cash for arbitrary periods of time, such as two to eighteen months, as an alternative to a traditional bank money market or CD account. After all, 3.25% APY is better than I can get anywhere else.

Incidentally, I found out about SmartyPig from a recent AARP publication, but they have actually been around for a little more than a year.

-- Jack Krupansky