Quick Bonus $ - SOFI Savings Bonus July 2022

Sharing Some Good Finds

After a month of telling all the ways standard retirement advice makes it so you are Not Gonna Make It (NGMI), I figured I should share some free money opportunity quick.

SOFI is running a pretty nice little promo bonus through the end of July (no affiliation or benefit to me if you sign-up).

SOFI Banking Link Here.

This is one of the better promos I have seen in a while. It is a good way to clip a few $100. The APR isn’t half bad, so you may want to keep the account open after you get your $.

But once you clear the required time, you can always close these accounts down and withdraw all the money to keep the promo money

What you get:

• Up to a $300 sign-up bonus with enough direct deposit

• 1.5% APR with direct deposit and 0.9% APR without direct deposit

Free Money Promo Sign-up Bonus

This is a tiered sign-up bonus. You have 30 days from your first deposit to hit the tier to get the bonus.

• <$1,000 in direct depost = $0 Bonus

• $1,000 to $1,999 in direct deposit = $50 bonus

• $2,000 to $4,999 in direct deposit = $100 bonus

• $5,000+ in direct deposit = $300 bonus

See screenshot below for official disclosure:

Note - When signing-up, you can do a joint account. If you have someone you share accounts with, you can change their direct deposit as well and it should be included in your total. (I did not confirm that is the case with SOFI, if someone does reach out and that isn’t true, then please comment below. But I read all the disclosures and don’t see any indication that it needs to be $5,000 from a single employer)

Any Downside To This Deal?

As always, do your own research and nothing here is advice…I am an Anon BowTied cartoon character you met on the internet.

This seems pretty straightforward as far as churn & burn accounts go.

1. If you are switching your direct deposit, make sure your current bank doesn’t charge any maintenance fee if you stop direct depositing

2. The promo ENDS July 31 - that means you need to do it now to get the full 30 days in

3. Depending on your employer it can be a PIA to change your direct deposits

4. SOFI will spam you and offer a suite of services

5. I haven’t closed an account with SOFI before - no idea on the user experience

   1. When you churn & burn with a real physical bank, you can always show up to a location and make someone act promptly

It appears from the disclosure that you just need to wait the 14-days for the $300 bonus to appear in your account and there is nothing stopping you from withdrawing all the money and closing the account if you desire.

(Again, I didn’t confirm this with SOFI, just going off the disclosures. If someone calls and gets better info, please share in the comments. Many banks have a 60 or 90 day waiting period before they will let you withdraw your account balance below the promo…ie they would make you keep atleast $300 in the account for 90 days and if you try to close the account before the 90 days they take the promo back. This does not appear to be the case here, just a 14 day waiting period, but didn’t confirm).

Summary

Go open a SOFI account & set up direct deposit. Collect $300. Decide if you want to keep a high direct deposit or lower it in August. Keep account open for a 0.9-1.5% APR or wait a sufficient amount of time and close the account and keep the free money.

I just signed-up and changed my direct deposits.

I will likely just let the account ride for a bit as even a 0.9% APR is better than most of my other banks are offering at this point in time. Keeping a few $thousand in SOFI for a while isn’t a big deal.

With the $300 promo and a 1.5% APR, you can get a 7.5% total return on $5,000 direct deposits for the year.

[If you like these kind of deals, let me know and I can pass more along in quick posts. There are a few other non-scalable free money opportunities out there every month]