I’m a cheap bastard

First things first: Uncle Scrooge is rad. This was one of my Dad's favorite comics when he was younger. He had a collection of old comics that I used to read when I was young before going to bed. I'm not going to place 100% of the blame on a comic book for my source of frugality, but there is a chance that it may have slightly influenced my young feeble mind. That being said, here is a story about how I am taking advantage of a potentially profitable situation. 

A couple of months ago, my brother had mentioned to me that BofA was offering a new savings account promo on their website. The deal is: if you have a checking account with Bank of America you can open a new savings account called "Keep the Change". The benefit of this account is that any time you make a purchase on your BofA Visa CheckCard that doesn't equate to an even dollar amount, Bank of America will automatically take the difference of that transaction that would add up to the next highest even dollar amount and transfer that amount into your new savings account. So far this doesn't seem like that great of a deal. Basically you are taking your own money in small portions and moving it from your checking account to your savings account. Remember that part where I mentioned earlier that there was a potentially profitable situation? Bank of America, as part of their promo, will match whatever amount you end up having to transfer due to the Keep the Change dollar round-ups for the first three months. So say you use your check card to pay $32.25 for gas one day. $32.25 will be given to the gas station, and $0.75 will be taken (charged) from your checking account and deposited into your new savings account. That $0.75 will also be matched by Bank of America at the end of the year along with every other Keep the Change transaction you make for the first three months. So how am I taking advantage of it? I'm not really milking it as much as I could be, but basically, every time I go out to eat and leave a tip for the total bill, I always make sure the total adds up to $XX.01 so that I am getting the largest possible deposit from that transaction. I also do the same thing at gas stations. When I fill up my car, I continue to squeeze the pump until the total comes to $XX.01 which is typically frowned upon at gas stations since you are not supposed to top off your tank. I was thinking how if I still worked at Ruby's I would be able to order my daily meals there and pay for it on my card in multiple transactions of $1.01 until I paid the whole meal off. I don't know if there would be anything to stop me from paying my meal off one penny at a time other than the fact that the manager would probably hate me.

After a month and a half, I have accumulated $34.81 in Keep the Change transactions. If I average the same until the promo ends, Bank of America will be paying me around $70 at the end of the year. Not a huge amount, but then again, I needed a savings account anyways, so they are basically paying me $70.00 to have a free account there. Another nice perk about this offer is that after the 3 months are up, they will still match 5% of your deposits for the rest of the time you are in good standings with your checking and savings account. Based off my average I might be getting another $10.50 for my 5% at the end of the year. And that's how you too can be a cheap bastard.