Dude, Get Your Own Orange Crush!

This is Blog Post 1 of 2 on what Capital One will do to ING…enjoy.

I have five checking accounts right now at five different institutions.  This is a hazard of working in the financial services industry and helping banks and CUs gain new customers.  It’s also a byproduct of having shopped around for many years for a good fit in a PFI.  While I have five checking accounts, several of which are used for basic transactions, my heart and my direct deposit lies with ING Direct.  They are my Orange Crush, you might say!

Unfortunately I – just like my ING brethren and sistren – am afraid of what Capital One might do to my relationship. See the rampant speculation here.

My relationship with ING started six years ago when they lured me on a first date with sexy talk of 4.5% interest on a savings account.  They even bought me dinner by way of a $25 account opening incentive.  Since then they have repeatedly wooed me with the fact that they don’t play games – what you see is what you get – and they have grown our relationship by thinking long term.

What I mean by this is:

• They allow sub savings accounts so you can divide your money into buckets for different goals.  I have mentioned this convenient feature to many bankers over the years and many seem surprised that they’ve not done this for their own customers.  I’m more surprised than them when all of these bankers don’t implement this feature at any point after our conversation either.
• They didn’t try to cross sell the hell out of me the day after my first account.  Nope, they allowed the experience do the talking for them and then later asked for both referrals and my additional accounts/deposits…of which I gave them both.
• They have engaged me with money-saving tips.  People who know me in my real life know that I’ve never met a coupon I didn’t like.  If you want to be my friend, buy me a drink.  If you want to be my friend for life, buy me a drink with a BOGO (buy one, get one free) coupon.  It will show me that you value our friendship now and that you want to save money to buy me drinks in the future, too.
• They have engaged me on a deeper level than just taking my money and allowing me access to it.  Their “We the Savers” movement (it’s gone past marketing when people call it a movement and post emotional things on the company’s FB wall) is something I found to be interesting enough to follow at first and then later ask to be a part of…shown here by my entry into their money-saving blog contest in early 2010:

 “Squirreling funds and spending on family in the Midwest (it’s a working title, folks).

 

Right now I’m leaving voicemails for contractors in the hopes of adding some insulation to the near-non-existent walls of our house. I’m doing this because my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter woke up freezing cold after removing all clothes except her underwear last night.  I’m also calling in the hopes of taking advantage of  the Lincoln Nebraska Electric System’s sustainable energy program, which will provide up to $1,000 to help me pay for this. That program started today and I had set up a reminder on my calendar. 

 

The money for this added insulation will come from one of my ING savings accounts.  I currently have five, or maybe six, I’m not totally sure.  They are each labeled with a different name and for a different reason.  This money would come out of the joint fund and go into a newly created “insulation” or maybe “keeping daughter from freezing” fund.  This kind of spending makes sense to me because it will pay back in saved energy costs and also provide added comfort.   

 

Fifteen years ago, I would not have imagined dropping a grand on something you can’t see, taste, or touch (not if you don’t want to be all itchy anyway).  But that was a different time, back when I was dancing to PM Dawn or some other one-hit-wonder in the basement of a fraternity. Back then I didn’t know what a thousand dollars looked like.  Now, I’m constantly analyzing how I can save my next thousand dollars, where it will go, and what it would be worth at retirement. It’s actually more fun than dancing to PM Dawn, though it may not sound like it.  Side note: Many of you are too young to know who PM Dawn is so imagine a large dreadlocked man in tiny sun glasses singing in a very soft but high-pitch voice to a flowing, serene techno tune.  You can now see why their one hit was all they could muster.

 

Two contractors are set to stop by the house later this week to give me estimates.  In order to get the sustainable energy credit for the walls, I’ll also have to add insulation to my attic, which now needs to be rated R19 or less. I’m now wishing that the people who built my house were less than competent, at least on this one area.  They certainly were drinking or asleep when they forgot the basement on this house, which is considered to be in tornado alley.  I can only hope to be so lucky on the attic issue, too.

 

If I don’t qualify for the credit, I suppose I’ll go ahead and get some insulation blown in the walls anyway. The surface temperature of my daughter’s arms this morning would certainly have warranted a concerned look from social services had they been there and monitoring that sort of thing. Over the years I’ve learned that money can create experiences, buy possessions, make you look like a big shot, allow you to buy the latest PM Dawn song from iTunes (assuming they are still tripping the light fantastic – did that comment date me?), but it can also make you feel like a good dad and husband because you’re able to keep your family a little warmer or safer.  I’m looking forward to spending this bit of savings on that feeling!“

 

 

I will blame my not being chosen to blog for We the Savers by the judging panel’s obvious lack of knowledge about PM Dawn (be ignorant no more, my friends!).  But, how many people out there enter your institution’s blog contest or engage you on your Facebook page?  I’m going to guess it’s a hair less than the amount of people who entered to blog money-saving tips for We the Savers.

My level of engagement might not be typical of all or even the majority of the ING customers…but maybe it is:

Editors Note: for those of you who prefer rampant cussing, please excuse the bars on the text.  

This is a turning point for me and ING.  Sure all of the sexy talk about 4.5% interest has waned a bit since we got married – I believe I’m only earning 1.1% interest on a substantial (for me anyway) pool of money – but they love is still there.  And sure Ally, Smarty Pig, and others out there might be more attractive dance partners but ING and I have history…or at least we did.

What is in store for me, the ING customer, now that someone is hoping to capitalize on my orange crush?  I’ll explore that more in the next post.

If you have thoughts – or if you’re also dating ING (gasp, how dare you!) – I’d love to hear from you in the comments section.  Or perhaps a R&B video response ala PM Dawn style would be better.