Bank of America, where I currently pay my mortgage, offered me a $300 bonus if I opened a checking account and deposited a certain amount into that account within three months. The required amount was about 3 times what I pay in my monthly mortgage payment, so to start earning that $300, all I had to do was open the account (which took about 10 minutes) and set up a direct-deposit allocation on the intranet at work (5 minutes). That’s it.
Now, instead of logging onto the Bank of America website each month and paying the mortgage from my credit union checking account, I use the same BoA website and pay the mortgage from the new Bank of America checking account. I’ve set up the direct deposit so that each time I am paid, which is every two weeks, half of the money I need for the mortgage payment is sent by direct deposit to the BoA checking account. Over the course of a year, this will be enough for 13 payments instead of the required 12, so I’ll probably use the extra amount for additional payments towards the mortgage principal. I can make the mortgage payment every 4 weeks (every other payday) and I’ll be making 13 payments in 12 months. I’ll put the $300 bonus towards the mortgage too.
Eventually, when it can be done without incurring any “account closing” fee, I’ll probably close the account (which should take another 5 minutes) … and wait for next time a bank is willing to pay me a bonus for opening a checking account.
$300 for roughly 30 minutes of work is around $600 per hour. Nice work if you can get it.*
This isn’t the first time and I hope it won’t be the last. Given the amount of interest I paid due to unwise use of credit cards when I was young and stupid, it’s nice to be getting some of it back.
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