Recently, I made $500 from opening bank accounts with Bank of the West and Monifi. I’m still waiting on $600 from two more bank accounts. Here, I’ll go over the easiest money I’ve made by taking advantage of bank signup bonus offers.

What are bank signup bonus offers?⌗

Bank signup bonus offers are similar to credit card bonuses, which I recently blogged about. You find banks that have bonuses for opening new accounts, and you earn the bonus as interest after you meet certain requirements. Once you earn the interest, you transfer the money out and close the account. The interest is taxable. At the end of year, you’ll get a 1099-INT, which you’ll report on that year’s tax forms.

Some requirements are easier to meet than others. For example, the Bank of the West bonus required three direct deposits totaling $1000 or more for the first three months. Others have more stringent requirements such as 10 debit card transactions in addition to direct deposit requirements. I usually focus on bank signup bonuses that require direct deposits.

How can I find bank signup bonus offers?⌗

Google is your friend, but typically, I use Doctor of Credit to find good offers. The comment sections also has a lot of datapoints from people who’ve previously tried and gotten the bank bonus offers. For example, people will list what they’ve tried that counts as direct deposits. Sometimes, an ACH transfer from another bank account will code as direct deposit. They will sometimes also list the timeline from when the account is opened to when the bonus hit.

All it takes to get the signup bonus is to open the bank account and meet the requirements that the bank lists. I always make a copy of the bonus requirements on my Notes app, and a reminder on my Todoist app of setting up the direct deposits needed.

Once I hit the direct deposit requirements, I will remove the direct deposit setup from my employer’s HR website. And once the bonus posts, I’ll push all the cash in the account back to my main checking account and close the account by giving the bank a call.

I also add the bonus to my Todoist app under a Taxes category so I remember to check for the 1099-INT during tax time in the following year. I save 12% of the bank bonuses for taxes, since the bonuses are taxable.

How much money can you make this way?⌗

Last year, we made $800 in bank bonuses with Capital One. This year, we will make $1000 and probably more. Super easy way to make some extra money for a couple of hours of work. All it takes is researching the bank bonuses requirements, setting up direct deposits, waiting a little bit, transferring the money out and closing the accounts. And the bank signup bonuses we get don’t require any additional spending.

The longest we’ve waited for these bonuses was 6 months, for the Bank of the West account (really annoying by the way). The shortest might be a couple of days. This truly is one of the easiest way to make money.

Have you ever tried bank signup bonuses? What are some other ways you’ve made money? Let me know in the comments!