I’ve been kind of lazy with my money in recent years. Perhaps that’s because I don’t have much of it. But that was never an excuse for my parents, who also never had a lot of it, but who always tried to be conscious of how they used it, where it went, and who used it in between.
One of my earliest political memories is of my dad’s grass roots organizing around migrant farm workers (a cause close to home in Oxnard) and around ending apartheid in South Africa. My dad would never go to Africa, or even leave the United States. But through out my childhood, my dad thought it was important to apply whatever pressure he could, from our home in Ventura County, to help the causes of our neighbor, the migrant far workers, as well as and our distant brothers and sisters suffering under apartheid, half a world away.
And so, the earliest boycotts I can recall were against grapes and lettuce (which put pressure on farm growers) and Bank of America (which was doing business in South Africa).
Having learned what I’ve learned about banks over the past few years (and especially the past couple of months), I’ve know for awhile the best thing I could do with the little money I have is to invest it with a local credit union. Bank Transfer Day vanquished my laziness and got me to open up an account with the credit union that just happened to be down the street from me.
For whatever reason, I can’t say I wasn’t a little apprehensive about the whole thing. It’s my money and I should be able to put it wherever I want. But I have a great deal of fear of dealing with money, which is hyped up by the well founded fear of what’s been happening with banking lately. I had looked into credit unions before, and thought that the only ones in Brooklyn were extremely far from my house. But when I realized there was one about 400 feet away, I didn’t have an excuse to check it out.
My credit union is tiny. Lots of people wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving their money hear, I reckon. There are no fancy signs, no computer screens flashing graphics, and nothing being sold. It doesn’t inspire confidence, in the traditional sense.
But though there were only two people working, there was no waiting. There are far fewer people coming and going than in a traditional bank. When I thought on it, I realized I normally wait endlessly in banks with large staffs, even though they have a lot of people scurrying around.
It was completely painless to open my accounts. The saving account rates are comparable or better than most banks. I’ll get a debit card just like at a bank, which I can use with no monthly fee. As long as I say it’s a “credit” card when I make purchases and sign instead of entering a PIN, there’s no fee for using it. (It’s $1 each time I enter the PIN number for such a transaction). There’s no fee for checks. There’s no monthly fee.
It’s enough to make you suspicious (as Chases would try to make me feel later). But since the credit union isn’t leveraging itself six ways to Sunday on credit default swaps, Greek debt, etc., and it’s not employing top heavy executives nor fancy offices, its expenses are much lower. The rules governing credit unions are quite strict — more so than big banks, which is why they didn’t go kaboom in 2008. And, since the National Credit Unit Administration insures deposits up to $250,000 just like FDIC insurance covers banks, my deposits are every bit as safe there as they are in any bank (as long as the United States can keep making good on its payments, that is).
Opening the credit union account was so easy, in fact, I thought I had been duped somehow. But no. It’s just painless. I can get cash from them Tuesday to Saturday, and use an ATM at any “co-op” (there are a bunch in NYC) for free, or at any 7-11 (one near me, as well).
Chases was more awkward. I had just opened an account at Chases a couple of months ago, because having most of my banking processed through an e-bank, I needed a local way to deposit and cash checks. Turns out, Chases piggy backed me onto old accounts I’d had from a local bank I’d banked with a million years ago until WaMu gobbled it up in a merger before going under itself and being gobbled up by Chase. (I had depleted that account but had not, apparently, closed it.)
Chase was not, of course, pleased with my closing my account. A representative was happy to whisk me away from other customers, so they wouldn’t get any ideas. They then told me that I’d have to pay $25 to close each account, because they were new accounts. I told them the very idea that they’d want to charge anyone to close their account doubled my resolve to close my accounts. They tried to bargain me down to a smaller account with smaller fees. I told them I now had a credit union with no monthly fees; they tried to ask me if the credit union was safe, and how did I know my money was safe if there were no fees?
It came out that I was a writer. Suddenly, the Chases customer realized my accounts were tied to old accounts, and the closing fees were dropped.
They offered to take my bank documents and shred them for me. I chose to keep them for my own records.
And then I closed my account. All told, it was like breaking up with an ex when things weren’t clicking and you weren’t really seeing each other much — awkward, but not awful.
I am not done with Chases in my life, of course. They hold my credit card (reward points about that were dangled in front of my eyes to try to keep me as a banking customer), and they’re the bank of my employer. But at the very least, I am looking forward to moving the little savings I have, and my monthly paychecks, to my local credit union. They’ll keep the money in my community, lend it to my neighbors, and give me all of the service I need for my limited banking needs, with fewer bells and whistles, but also with fewer lines and less guilt.