How I Qualified For SoFi High Yield Savings Rate

A few months ago, I wrote about opening a SoFi account. The sole purpose of doing it was to save for my car loan debt, so I can pay it off within two years. It is a crazy plan, and I hope to use SoFi 3.10% interest rate savings to my own advantage

Initially, I did not incur that interest rate on savings. I think the little savings I had, was generating about 0.80%. This is a little above what most traditional banks will give you as interest rate on savings.

I had to start experimenting on a couple of things to see whether I could get that 0.80% to rise to 3.10%. This is after I heard SoFi had higher interest rates on its savings account. On this article, I am going to talk about how I was able to do it. I would like you to keep an open mind, then choose the method which works for you.

Set Up Direct Deposit With SoFi

I am currently traveling as a certified surgical tech. At first, I used Schwab bank to save some percentage of my weekly paycheck. After a while, I got tired of writing a check to myself each time I want to move money out of the account.

This is because my Schwab account does not have a debit card. It is something I intentionally did to curb my enthusiasm about spending my savings. I figured the hassle of looking for my checkbook to write a check, will deter me from moving money out of the account for spending.

But, I soon got tired after four months due to the frustration I created for myself. What did I do, my dear reader?

Well, I set up a direct deposit with SoFi. It was set in a way where 80% of my paycheck goes into my SoFi savings account, while the rest goes to another bank. Since my paycheck comes in weekly, the consistent direct deposit qualified me for SoFi high yield savings account rate.

That is the 3.10% APY I mentioned early.

As a result, I currently earned 3.10% SoFi high yield savings rate. It has been this way for some time now. This is because my direct deposit happens weekly. The direct deposit has become one of the ways I put money into my SoFi account.

Speaking of direct deposit, you can get $400 in cash bonus from SoFi when you set up a direct deposit and get $5000 through it. Your direct deposit has to be within 21 days of account creation. You can use my referral link below, so they know I sent you.

Deposit $5000 Every 31 Days

Prior to setting up a direct deposit with SoFi, I once qualified for the high interest rate. But, it was temporary. I could not sustain it for an obvious reason.

$5000 is a hell of a money!

I do not know about you, but I do not have $5000 laying around every month. The one time I did, I had just moved some money from a savings account in another bank to my SoFi Savings vault.

Have you heard about SoFi Savings vault?

Well, it is a SoFi feature which lets you set up a saving goal. I used it to set up the car loan payment goal I told you earlier. It is one of the things I like about this online bank.

Anyways, I got the 3.10% rate temporarily when I deposited the $5000. I will not recommend this method, since it requires you do it every month. If you are a young working class adult like me, $5000 is kind of hard to come by. I would just say to go with setting up a direct deposit.

Besides depositing $5000 monthly, there is another way you can qualify for the SoFi interest rate on savings. It requires you enrolling with SoFi Plus. Below is the last option, but I do not like it because it requires a $10 monthly subscription to SoFi Plus.

Enrolling With SoFi Plus

SoFi Plus is a subscription which opens a lot of banking perks for SoFi members. This includes getting a savings interest of up to 4.50%. That is sweet, is it not?

I mean we can barely find banks offering that rate, besides my top high interest savings accounts. As I mentioned earlier, access to this interest rate comes with a price: a monthly subscription. It costs about $10 monthly to enroll in the SoFi Plus.

Personally, I do not need it. If you want to go that route due to other benefits of the SoFi Plus, you can go with it. But, my sole purpose of setting up a SoFi account was to save up my car loan debt so I can pay it off on time. Therefore, incurring additional expenses just to get additional benefits, does not seem attractive to me right now.

Having said that, I would stick to the direct deposit to maintain the interest rate on my savings account. It does not cost me anything. The best part of it is there is no specific amount that should be deposited through direct deposit.

Simply put, you could decide to have a monthly direct deposit of $100 and still qualify for the 3.10% SoFi high yield savings rate. If you ask me, I would say to choose the same route as me. I do not believe in paying a bank to let me have access to certain features in their banking services. They already have my money to do as they please, and I consider that a privilege.

Is SoFi’s Savings Rate Competitive Enough To Worth It?

Definitely.

Personally, I think it is one of the easiest high interest savings accounts out there. This is because you do not have to do a lot to qualify for it. Some high yield accounts have either have minimum savings account, or some other outrageous requirements hard for young working class adults to qualify.

Not SoFi, because what I talked about so far is how SoFi high yield savings requirements work. There are three ways to earn the high interest in its savings account. I tried the first two, especially the direct deposit way. Using the direct deposit worked for me, so I did not have to enroll in SoFi Plus.

I know, the 4.5% annual percentage yield is tempting. If you have the extra $10 monthly, I would say to get the SoFi Plus. This is especially, when you want the highest interest rate with your savings. That is assuming you have a long time saving goal and a bag of money to save.

Anyway, I just thought you might want to hear about my experience. Sincerely speaking, this online bank has amazed me so far. Not just SoFi high yield savings rate, but also other things it has done for me. I am sticking with it for sure, even when I am done saving up my car loan debt.