SmartyPig.com - Is it worth it?

Today I randomly came across SmartyPig.com . I was immediately intrigued by the concept. The general idea is that you create savings goals and contribute to those goals every month.

However, it is not that simple and has several different factors that make this attractive:

• The first thing that I noticed was the very high interest rate (currently it is at 2.01%). Their highest has been 4.3% back in April 2008 and it appears that they usually are within the top 3 highest among all of the saving accounts (check out: http://www.depositaccounts.com/blog/2010/01/bank-deals-weekly-summary-for-january-23-2010.html#mma ). These numbers are incredibly high considering the small deposit requirements.
  
  
• If you are saving for something that you can purchase at one of their preferred retailers, you could end up getting an additional percentage on top of your goal amount (as high as 12%). So if you are purchasing something from Macy's that is $2,000 worth, you would get an additional $240! As of right now they have Amazon.com (4%), Bass Pro Shops (6%), Cabela's (5%) and several others: http://www.smartypig.com/about/best-in-class .
  
  
• You can have "public" goals that allow people to contribute to those goals, or give them the ability to see how you are doing on those goals. This would be useful if you are raising money to go somewhere, but it wouldn't be useful for what I would be using it for.
  
  
• When they first launched, they had quite a few different fees. However, it looks like they got rid of the majority of those fees, and the main fee they charge is for contributing to a public goal with a credit card.

The dilemma I have been facing recently is whether to open up several saving/checking accounts and where to keep my emergency fund.

I do not like to keep everything in my checking account, because then it is a temptation to spend it all. I also like to be organized in that I want separate savings account for my emergency fund and my car fund, for example.

Below is how I would use this service. Thanks to this blog post, I think I can make this work: http://myfinancialjourney.com/archive/switching-my-high-yield-savings-to-smartypig .

1. I would create a goal that I would use as my emergency fund. When I meet that goal, I would just keep the funds in the account to earn the high interest. If I would need to withdraw from my emergency fund, I would create another goal that is the amount I would need to withdraw, transfer those funds to that goal and then do a transfer to my checking account.
   
   I have read that some people do not think the funds at SmartyPig are liquid enough to be an emergency fund, but transferring to my checking account in 3 business days is liquid enough for me.
   
   
2. I would use the same general idea for a car fund.
   
   
3. If I needed to purchase anything from any of the retailers that provide a bonus %, I would create a goal for that amount, transfer the funds, and then request the gift card. This is especially going to be useful around Christmas time. The only thing to keep in mind that when creating a new goal, it has to be at least $250.
   
   
4. This would allow both me and my wife to setup goals for things we want to save for. It puts more emphasis on the goal of saving (being able to see percentages and time frames) than it does on the process of saving.

So I can be as organized as I want in regards to saving money, without having multiple checking/savings accounts, and get one of the highest interest rates for a savings account in the industry.

Do you think this is a good idea, or am I trying to stretch the point of this service to much? Would you use SmartyPig?