Withdrawing Funds From Upromise
A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… I signed up for a Upromise account on a whim. I knew that it would never really make a dent in our college savings, but I’m a big fan of free money, so why not? For the most part, I just ignore the fact that we even an account, but every once in awhile I log in and check out our balance. This past weekend I did just that, and discovered that we have $44.96 in savings built up — mostly from . Woohoo! That’s enough money to go to the trouble of withdrawing it. What’s that you say? You didn’t know that you could just withdraw the funds rather than investing them through Upromise? Sure enough, you can do just that.
Here’s the scoop straight from Upromise:
Can I withdraw company contributions from my Upromise account without transferring them to a savings plan, and if so, how?
You can withdraw your Upromise contributions at any time during your membership. To withdraw company contributions from your Upromise account, submit a letter in writing to Upromise requesting a withdrawal from your Upromise account. The letter must state your full name and exact amount that you would like to withdraw, up to total amount available in your account, pending contributions are not eligible for withdrawal.
For the protection of our members, we require that your letter either be notarized or contain a Signature Guarantee if the withdrawal request is in excess of $200. A Signature Guarantee is a guarantee you can obtain from a financial institution, such as your bank, that your signature is yours and that it is genuine.
Withdrawal letters should be sent to:
Upromise
ATTN: Customer Care
P.O. Box 55555
Boston, MA 02205-5555Checks are sent once per calendar quarter, so you should typically receive your check within 12 weeks of your request being received.
To make your savings work for you, you may want to consider transferring your company contributions to an investing plan for a future college student.
So there you have it… Just whip up a letter including the requested information, send it to the above address, and then wait. As long as you’re withdrawing less than $200, there’s no need to deal with obtaining a Signature Guarantee.In my experience, it actually takes quite awhile to get your check — they say up to 12 weeks because checks are sent once per quarter, and it was at least that — but the check does come. You’re then free to do anything you want with the money.
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I did that too, and yes it took a really long time. I forgot about it by the time it came, so yay, free money!
Comment by Kira — Oct 16th 2006 @ 11:43 amWait a minute, aren’t there tax implications to withdrawing this money? Technically, isn’t it income? I believe it’s only tax-free if used for education.
We have over $400 in our account, which I have considered moving into a 529 college savings account. Whoa! I just found out that Upromise can now link to a variety of these accounts, not just the Vanguard option. I might need to reconsider the 529 account.
Comment by Andrew Flusche — Oct 16th 2006 @ 12:30 pmAndrew, that’s a really good question. In general, I think of Upromise ‘earnings’ as being (effectively) rebates. I’m by no means an expert on this, but I wouldn’t think they’d be any more taxable than money you otherwise save by using coupons, mailing in rebates, or cashing in on credit card rewards. Think discount as opposed to income. Here again, don’t take me at my word — you’ll need to verify this with someone that’s more well-versed in the tax codes than I am.
As you say, it’s essentially free money. I’ve had an account for almost a year now and I’ve saved up a grand total of $13.26! Woohoo! Still, it only took a few minutes to set up, so it was worth it.
Comment by Steve — Oct 16th 2006 @ 1:37 pmThanks! This is new info to me. I haven’t signed up for UPromise but now I probably will
Comment by Cathy — Oct 16th 2006 @ 8:53 pmThanks for being a fan of “Free Money”.
Comment by FMF — Oct 17th 2006 @ 8:23 amWe have over $1,000 in the Upromise account (because we have relatives joining in with us)! I am anticipating extracting the money and funding a Roth.
Comment by foolarch — Oct 18th 2006 @ 12:10 pmUpromise dollars are considered REBATES, so the money you withdraw is indeed nontaxable.
Comment by UKidme — Jan 24th 2007 @ 1:20 pmThe program isn’t nearly as good as it promised to be, when it started 5 years ago. Lots of mismanagement…for example, you used to save on Kelloggs and Coca-Cola products, but many of these partners are leaving in droves. You’re better off with any number of the competing credit card loyalty programs where you can save much more.
Ukidme — it doesn’t cost anything and you just link your cards (credit cards, grocery cards etc) and it just works. It’s not like you have to pick one or the other. ie you could be in a credit card loyalty program AND be in Upromise.
I didn’t know about the fact that you could extract the money — but that’s ok, I needed to set up a 529 for my daughter anyway. It’s a nice bonus that every quarter there’s a little something extra contributed by upromise.
Comment by cradle — Oct 24th 2007 @ 8:27 pmI use the Citi Upromise credit card for all my purchases and every quarter the remaining money gets swept into my student loan. This is what I was doing with ThankYou points but it eliminates the step of calling Citi and requesting a check.
I haven’t gotten any friends or family to sign up for it yet, that’s where the real savings is I think.
Comment by Matt — Oct 25th 2007 @ 2:59 amI’ve been a Upromise member for about 2 years now. I love going to the grocery store and looking for those little blue-and-yellow tags. I can ususally spot one about every 3 aisles! I always get about a dozen frozen Swanson t.v. dinners, well, even though no one in my family eats them, but think of the savings! My balance after 2 years got all the way up to $11.13. I filled up my car’s gas tank! Well, I got the needle up to 1/4 anyway! Like everyone says, it’s free money! Woohoo!
Comment by Joseph — Oct 26th 2007 @ 10:05 pmThe problem I seem to run into is that the Upromise items are always more expensive. You don’t find them on store brands! I’ve been signed up for over a year and I’ve only made something like .60 cents (I’m a college student right now). But you are probably buying a lot more groceries than me to feed those mouths.
That is AWESOME though that you’ve made so much. Congrats!
Comment by Lou — Oct 27th 2007 @ 8:24 amWe don’t actually do anything different when we shop. I just enrolled the cards and then every once in awhile (like about once a year) I log in to upromise to see where we’re at.
It builds up pretty (very!) slowly, especially since we buy a lot of store brands. But since we don’t do anything special, it really is free money.
I have been with upromise for approximately one year. I have had nothing but trouble for the past 3 months trying to log into my account. Upromise unilaterally CHANGED my password and now, although they have no problem bombarding me with emails EVERYDAY about savings, they can’t seem to connect me to my account. I have talked with service techs, emailed, and requested my password for months. One of the problems that I see is that, I won an auction for over $2K on eBay (one of their merchants) in July. In August, the last time I was able to access my account, I had not received any credits for my eBay winnings (numerous auction winnings, not just the $2K)….When I complained, for some strange reason, I could no longer get into my account. I have spent over 2 hours talking with techs, and they just tell me that upromise is having technical “difficulties” with “SOME” of the accounts. When I go to the home page, I receive the “Welcome, _____”, and shop on line at their preferred merchants….But, the real big ticket credits NEVER arrive in your account!!!! Only the grocery stores!!!! This is a scam.
Comment by DCD — Nov 6th 2007 @ 3:58 pmI’m surprised to see how little some of you have made. If you sign up for the Upromise master card and add that card to your Upromise credit card list, you’ll save tons. 1% of all your purchases are put into this account. Plus whatever participating merchants contribute on top of that. We don’t go crazy with spending either - we pay off the credit card each month. But all purchases we make are with this cc. I’ve had the account over 5 years now and have earned over $2000. Most of the contributions have been from the MC. I withdrew $1500 last year to buy my freshman in college a Dell laptop. I was wondering if I’d have any tax implications for 2007 - it sounds like not from what I am reading above. This is an awesome program.
Comment by Mary — Jan 29th 2008 @ 10:40 pmI’ve done the same…
Comment by Kristina — Jan 30th 2008 @ 11:34 pmWe have been putting $$ into a upromise account for 4 years, both purchases and % of credit card purchases. We recently tried to get the $$ out–no luck. I spent several hours on the phone with someone who I had difficulty understanding. She kept checking with her supervisor. Finally, she said that since my daughter also had a upromise account we needed to be her “friend” and then we could transfer money to her account. We did all of those things–no luck. I didn’t realize that we could simply write a letter and withdraw. I can’t believe it could be that simple after the runaround we got but it’s worth a try. Thanks!
Comment by cate — Feb 9th 2008 @ 2:01 pm