One of the commenters on my first article, @Kim, clued me in to a deal at Navy Federal wherein you could get free money when opening up or rolling over an IRA. I hadn’t heard of this, so I googled it, and lo and behold, it was the first match!
The basics of the program go like this: If you open a NFCU IRA with at least $100, you get $100. If you open one with at least $5,000 from a rollover or transfer, you get an additional $100.
I joined both NFCU and USAA during OIS (Officer Indoctrination School, similar to boot camp but for Navy officers), but have never used the former. However, 100% return upon investment sounds like a decent return. So, after spending 20 minutes figuring out my login information, because I haven’t used it in years, I found out I had exactly $0 in any of my accounts! So, to open my $100 (soon to be $200) IRA account, I wanted to transfer in $100 from my USAA account…should be easy right?
I don’t know about you, but Navy Federal honestly has one of the least user-friendly websites I have ever encountered! It rivals Citicards in all-around badness. Even US Bank has improved their website. And ESPECIALLY when you compare it to USAA’s, which is a dream compared to this. When I finally found the “open an IRA account”, under Account Services, the far-right tab, you don’t have the option of directly funding it from an outside bank. So, when I went to the transfer page, it says, “To directly move your IRA funds from another financial institution to Navy Federal, you must first complete and sign the IRA Transfer or Direct Rollover Form and mail it to Navy Federal. You may mail the completed form to Navy Federal Credit Union P.O. Box 3100, Merrifield, VA 22180”. Lovely, it’s 2014 and you still can’t do it with a computer.
So I needed to fund it from my checking or savings acct, but I have no money. I initiated a transfer from USAA to NFCU at around 1600, but it’s now 2200 and still no money in my account…I’ll check in the morning.
I love the idea of 100% ROI, but NFCU makes it difficult.
What I might do is go the NFCU branch in South Philly, and see if some face-to-face contact would make it any easier.
Have any of you participated in this promotion?
You couldn’t be more correct on the NFCU/Citi website issues. Citi forces me into a sales pitch on balance transfers 1/2 the time on sign-in. NF just seems so out of date ca. 2008 or something.
@penaltyvectorer – I’m sure NFCU and Citi are reading this post initiating change as we speak! 😉
I had some money in my Navy Federal checking account, so I just transferred $100. The IRA rollover may be too much work. Note that if you have direct deposit to your Navy Federal checking, you can open an EasyStart certificate for up to $3k that earns 3% interest, even for the new IRA. Seems like a better option than the .75% interest IRA Savings Account. Unfortunately, you can only have one EasyStart certificate. Also, I think I may have read about this offer first on pdfdigest, so he should have probably gotten credit, not me.
@Kim – Thanks for the tips! (PS – if you want to write a guest post, let me know!). @PFDigest, sounds like you need a hat tip too!
Hey Andy,
I tried this bonus out last month. I worked great for me. I signed up Jan 15 and the $100 bonus posted two weeks later on Jan 30. I used the $50 bonus account sign up also so i contributed $50 and got a 300% return. I posted on our site http://www.discounts-deals4military.com/2014/01/Navy-Federal-Bonuses.html if you want more details
Also right now they have a $25 referral bonus going on. Check out http://www.maximizingmoney.com/banking-bonus-deals/navy-federal-credit-union-new-member-bonus/ for more details