ING Orange Savings Account...Good idea? Saving & Investment in general.?

I'm a 20 year old college student trying to learn how to be smart with my money. I'm interested in learning good ways to save and invest my money.
I've saved up about $800 in a savings account right now, but I receive only 0.25% interest on it and I want to get more. I recently read a blog that recommended ING Direct and checked out the website. It looks good, but I have so little experience with banking and investment that I'm afraid to take risks with my money (college student = poor/scared to lose money). So here are a few questions, feel free to give me any more advice:

1. Is ING saving or investment? Are there risks?
2. Do they only have one type of account?
3. What are CDs and how do they compare & contrast with ING?
4. What should I be doing with the money I'm saving?

Hey guys, thanks for all the feedback. Since so many of you were so kind I'll let the community pick best answer.
Thanks again.

ING Direct is a savings account, so your money is guaranteed by the government (FDIC).

They have multiple types of accounts, you just have to choose one that's best for you.

http://home.ingdirect.com/products/

CDs are contracts where you lend the bank a certain amount of money for a set amount of time. They then pay you interest. The worst thing about CDs is that it's hard to withdraw money except at designated times, which is inconvenient. A savings account like ING can get you pretty good rates comparable to CDs.

With $800, you should probably just put it in a savings account and not do anything too fancy with it. Having a savings account puts you a step ahead of other 20 year old already.

I have an ING direct savings account and I recommend it very highly.The interest is great, the internet access is good, and the security is good.You can also link it to an outside checking account to transfer funds as needed.

ING is both savings and checking, I have not seen any risks

they have savings and checking

don't have experience with CD but I think I have heard ING interest is higher

letting your money grow, and if you have an emergency you will have money to cover the emergency.

I am currently ING customer, I highly recommend it, good luck and have fun with it

ING-Direct is a well established and reliable savings institution. It pays a slightly higher rate than CD's, and you can get your money any time (unlike CD's which impose a penalty for withdrawing your money before the CD reaches its maturity date). Accounts are fully insured up to $100,000 by the US government (FDIC).

As far as goals are concerned, you haven't given enough information. How old are you? When do you expect to need to use the money in question?

ING has many types of savings accounts... if you know of someone with one... ask them to send you a link.. they get a few bucks for referring you, and you get a bonus for joining through them.

I have an ING and right now I think I am getting somewhere around 4% interest.

I am not sure what you are going to school for, but I suggest putting the money into a basic savings right now, and slowly trying to save up money.

I am 26... and I have been saving my money for years... slowly. I have looked around and havent found much better rates anyplace.

You can always check out the site bankrate dot com and see what they say for a high interest savings account...

And if you have a few bucks, look on amazon for a book by Suze Orman keywords "young fabulous and broke"

It will be the best 5 or 20 bucks you have ever spent.

:)

I have a savings similar to ING. It is a money market account, higher rates than other savings, with the benefit that you can put money in or out when you want, and there is no minimum. ING also has stock choices (riskier but with potential for higher long term results), CD's, IRA (retirement) choices, and others.

their straight savings will give you about 4%, which is one of the best. It differs from a CD by the fact that there is no minimum, and a CD is for a fixed amount of time at a fixed rate- the rate on this will go up and down a bit, but you have access to your money without a penalty fee if there is an emergency.

One more thing about ING- they have some deal going on right now that will give you an extra $25 for opening an account with them. Not a bad deal.

Good luck, and congrats on starting to save early.
The more you save, the better shape you will be in throughout your life.

There would be no risks with a ING Savings account.

I suggest researching a Managed Fund. You only need a small initial investment of $500 to $1000. Then you put in at least $100 a month, the returns are much higher than a saving account and the risk is small. Managed Funds diversify your money across blue chip shares with other managed fund investors.

I have an ING account and found it to be a convenient way to save money. I have it automatically taken out of my checking account weekly. I opened it up in October and even though I have only been averaging $300 or $400 in there at a time I have $3.30 in interest. Taking money out is defeating the savings part but at least I have a little saved.

You may not have heard of them, but ING is a huge financial company that is considered rock solid. They are also probably one of the first "real" banks to offer online savings. Unlike other online banks they don't offer an above market rate to entice you to sign up, so you will find higher rates out there. That said, I have ING savings and I love it.

They also have a checking account called ING Orange, but you don't get any paper checks.

Don't bother with CDs right now. Short term interest rates are almost as high a longer term rates, so you'll get maybe 0.25% or 0.50% more for locking up your money. Do the math on how much that is a $800! Keep it in a money market or online savings account.

You are doing the right thing by looking for an account like ING Orange. You don't have enough to look at anything else right now (although someone will always take your money). When you hit $5K or so, you can start thinking about investing for the longer term. Keep in mind most financial advisors recommend you keep 3 to 6 months of living expenses in cash as an emergency fund, so keep doing what you are doing.

I don't have an ING savings,but I do have an Emmigrantdirect savings account online.I highly recommend it.It constantly has better interest rates than ING.I got into using online savings for the same reason,my bank was only giving me 0.4 percent interest and my money was just sitting there stagnent.Now it is accruing interest daily at 4.05 percent .Don't just lock on to Ing ,look around and do some research.Google online savings account(i did)and there will be alot of repidable people talk about these sites.Good Luck.