In my last post, I told you how to get a checking account on Chexsystems. If you haven’t read that post, you can find it here:

Getting a Checking Account While on Chexsystems

Now, as I mentioned, ReadyDebit isn’t a traditional checking account. But it gives you a routing and account number, and many of the other benefits of traditional checking. It’s not perfect, but if you’re on Chexsystems, it’s a pretty good solution.

For many of us, there’s still that problem of depositing checks written to us. You can go to a check cashing joint, but they’ll make you wait in line and charge exorbitant fees. Ick.

So what’s the solution?

An Orange Saving Account from ING DIRECT.

You can send them checks made out to you, and they’ll deposit them in your savings account. You can then transfer the money to your ReadyDebit account.

They don’t use Chexsystems or credit checks for the Orange Savings Account, so you shouldn’t have a problem opening an account. There’s no minimum opening deposit – I opened mine with $25. Plus, this account offers higher interest than savings accounts through most traditional banks. As of this post, it’s about 1.5%. Not enough to make you rich, but it’s still free money.

Oh, and ING DIRECT accounts are FDIC insured up to $250,000 per depositor -if you open a joint account, you can have up to $500,000 insured.

Also, once you get your debts paid down, there’s another benefit: You can link a Sharebuilder account to the savings account, so you can easily move money over to invest. Sharebuilder only charges $4 per trade, which is a lot cheaper than online brokerages like eTrade.

Now, it’s critical that you open your ReadyDebit account first. That’s because you have to link a checking account in your name before you can open your ING DIRECT savings. When you’re opening the savings account, just use the routing and account numbers Ready Debit gives you.

You can open your Orange Savings Account here:

ING DIRECT Orange Savings Account

As I said, once this account is open, you can send them paper checks for deposit.

So why not just open an ING checking account too? Well, I called them, and their customer service department told me they use both credit checks and Chexsystems for their checking accounts. NOTE: This is only for checking – they don’t run credit or Chexsystems for savings.

Is this a perfect solution? Admittedly, no. If you didn’t have entries on your Chexsystems report, you could probably open a traditional checking and savings and manage your money more quickly. But if you’re on Chexsystems, I believe this is as good as it gets.