You do have to transfer the minimum $25 to set up a goal but you DON’T have to have recurring contributions to each one. I’ve also
a chance to redeem a goal into an Amazon.com card — worked slick, and I received the electronic gift code within about 10 minutes (they advertise 2-4 days). The bonus cash wasn’t huge (3%), but felt like free money since my purchase was tax-free and delivered free.

Regarding the beneficiary or POD stuff — I was concerned until it dawned on me that as long as my heirs can login to my SmartyPig they can transfer the money back to my bank which DOES have the POD. I just need to leave those instructions with my other important papers.

The best way to get around all the negatives is to be clever with your “saving goals.” Right away you should create two “emergency” goals and put as much as you feel you need — dividing that in half to put in each goal — so if you have to cash out right away, such as for an emergency operation, then you can since one of the two goals will never be locked up since you fund one and wait till it’s unlocked before funding the other; also if you do need to fund it then only fund each at $500 at a time so you can at most of the time close out both, so you would then create another 2 goals called “funding for emergency” to slowly over time fund up to that $500 ($1000 for both) so only one of those gets locked up along with one of the “emergency” goals but never the other — that way you can cash out one “funding for emergency” goal if you suddenly need $300 of it without it ever being locked up since you alternate funding those as well.

I guess you could set up two funding accounts (or even four for larger amounts) for everything so at least half of your goal is never locked up in the event you need money fast. Also you would then have the quick option to only cash out half of your goal if you need too. Though you could create a “partial cash out” goal — then instead of cashing out all (or half of) your money from a savings goal, you would place the portion you want to cash out into the “partial” goal — let’s say $35 and cash that out, keeping the savings goal intact till you can complete that goal; though according to Holly’s post above, it appears you now can take out portions without completely cashing out — so this would no longer be necessary.

I probably won’t get this account (at least not for a while) since I already have an MMA that’s at 1.75%, but if the APY rate to that account ever goes drastically down then I’ll consider switching.

1. You are REQUIRED to fund the account every month. You may NOT opt out. You have flexibility to alter the amount of the contribution, but you may not pre-emt it. It’s going to happen and once it does, your funds are locked in place. All of them are locked in place. In my case currently a monthly contribution of $29 was scheduled to occur on the 1st. It didn’t happen till the 3rd. Now when I try to close a savings goal totaling over $28,000, I’m told I may NOT close it out and have access to any of my funds until that tiny transfer of $29 is completed on the 10th!!!

This is odd because according to their own faq, “ACH transactions take 3 business banking days to clear. SmartyPig defines funds as having cleared once SmartyPig has collected the funds and has full use of the funds.”

When I finally get my money, I’m through with SmartyPig. However they may not be through with me. I’ve been saving these funds for 2 years for a surgery. If I miss it now because I’m unable to fund it in time, they WILL be hearing from my attorney. No company should be allowed to hold YOUR money hostage for such trivialities. This isn’t a CD. It’s a savings account.

Don’t count on help from their customer service either in a matter like this because it won’t be forthcoming.

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*Annual Percentage Yield (APY) is effective as of 7/22/2010. Balances $0.00 – $50,000.00 earn 2.133% (2.15% APY). Balances above $50,000.00 earn 0.499% (0.50% APY).
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i’d rather not have to open multiple accounts, so i’ll probably stick with one of the traditional banks.

I used to like it when you couldn’t turn off the automatic deposits without ending the goal (thus forcing you to withdraw all of the savings in that goal at once). That made it easier for me to save, since I did not want to have to close a goal, only to have to reopen it later.

Now they’ve changed that and you can quit making contributions and start back up whenever you’re ready, and you can also take out just a portion of the money, which is beneficial if you’re having a bit of a crisis, but just makes it too easy to quit the forced, routine saving. I guess I’ll have to go back to having the savings debited out immediately so it doesn’t even end up in the paycheck…how weak I am!