While the procedures for savings are a little bit tricky, the rate is well worth it. Smarty Pig sells itself as a place to save for particular things, rather than general saving. Interested in the latter, however, I have no problem picking "miscellaneous" as a goal, and watching the savings pick up. Its a good product.

I signed up to save for a house and a car and it's encouraging to watch the 'goal achieved' percentage go up. It makes me want to keep adding money to see the percent saved go up, rather than spending it on something I don't need. It helps visualize the goal and just makes saving fun. Even for adults. The automated monthly deposit to achieve the goal makes saving simple and painless.

After reading about SmartyPig on this site I went and opened up a savings account. IT WAS SO EASY. I got the highest APY I have found (3.90% when I signed up) and completed the whole thing in about 10 minutes.

I had been trying for a month to get an account open with HSBC. They kept telling me it was up and running and all I needed to do was wait for my information to come in the mail -- but it never showed, no matter how many times I called. And it still hasn't.

Now I am glad HSBC was unresponsive. SmartyPig has a higher rate then HSBC and they make it easy to transfer your money and watch it grow. I also like that it automatically stops deducting once you reach your goal. If you don't want it to stop, set your goal higher.

With easy set up, great service and the HIGHEST APY I have seen I am recommending SmartyPig to all my friends.

THANK YOU SMARTY PIG!!

SmartyPig is a great concept...automated savings meets social networking.It's a great concept for kids, reinforcing the savings ethic.

Re: withdrawals. It is supposed to be hard to withdraw cash...you use SmartyPig to save money for specific goals, and the idea is to keep the money in the bank until the goal is met. We gave it an OBR Best of the Web award earlier this year.

A friend of mine was telling me about this the other day and after reading the terms it looks like a pretty compelling deal.

I was looking for a higher interest rate savings account that would automatically deduct from my checking and Smarty Pig is the answer. As mentioned above, there are restrictions on how to get your money out, but hopefully that won't be a problem when i take my money out next year.

There is a long and arduous process to sign up, including picking your security picture ?!?! from a list and they also do an identity check similar to if you've ever tried to get your credit report. However, it took me less than 30 minutes to sign up and less than 2 minutes to set up my first savings goal.

You can't pick the amount for the required monthly deduction from your checking account. You enter your initial deposit, your future total goal and the date by which you'd like to achieve that goal. Smarty Pig then calculates the required monthly deduction. So, you would have to tweak those three inputs if you're looking for a specific deduction amount, like I was.

I wouldn't use the public savings goal feature, because I don't need or want to ask my friends and family for money, but I think it's a neat option to have for students or even newlyweds.