Consolidated Banking
By Matt - Friday, October 20th, 2006
I wanted to wait with this post until I’ve managed to get some of my banking consolidated. I worked on it this morning by trying to get my credit card limit increased to try consolidating my two cards onto one. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get as much of an increase as I wanted. Apparently I was late on a couple payments; what ever happened to the grace period? Oh well I have no one but myself to blame for this one.
Anyhow back to the topic at hand, consolidated banking; my thinking behind trying to consolidate your banking is that if you can simplify your banking then you’re less likely to miss a payment or be late. By consolidating your bank accounts with one bank you have fewer fees to pay. Most people don’t realize how much they pay in all sorts of bank fees over the course of the year. If you have to pay 1x$1.50 fee a week you’re looking at $75+ a year and this is being very conservative. I’ve always been good about withdrawing cash from my banks machines but I still see those little fees. This is above and beyond the $11 they charge me to keep my account open and active. All told I’m sure I pay probably close to $200 a year to the bank for their services. Now imagine having to do that over 2 or 3 banks and you’re all of a sudden looking at a significant amount of money.
The other benefit to consolidated banking is that you only have to deal with one bank; the more services you have the better the deals they will give you. It’s just a matter of keeping it simple. The simpler your banking dealings are the easier they’ll be to manage and if they’re easy to manage it’ll be that much easier to know where your money has gone.
Tags: Banking Tip, Money
This entry is filed under Saving Ideas, Commentary.
3 Responses to “Consolidated Banking”
1 Daniel says:
October 21st, 2006
at 2:47 pm
This can be very difficult sometimes to consolidate everything. I’m not sure what part of the country you are in, but for me using Bank of America has been great. There are ATM’s everywhere I need them and there are no monthly fees if I have direct deposit. However with all the great online banks, it doesn’t make too much sense to have my savings accounts with them. I do have a credit card with Bank of America too.
The great parts:
1) Transfers to pay my credit card are done in a day
2) Transfers to my fiance and back or my sister who also uses this bank are done instantly.
3) No monthly fees. ATM’s everywhere.
4) Online banking service is fantastic! Electronic bill pay is great and they have a feature called “My Portfolio” which allows you to track all your account balances for everything you have a online log in for. So I can log onto Bank of America, hit the update button and see my balances in ING, Ameritrade, Credit Cards, Car loan, 401k etc. It’s amazing!
Like your site, keep up the good posts!
2 Matt says:
October 22nd, 2006
at 3:04 pm
Thanks for the encouragement. I’m actually not in the US but in Canada. Bank of America definitely sounds good; the one I’m trying to consolidate on isn’t bad, though I’ve still got monthly fees.
3 One Million and Beyond - to one million and beyond » Consolidated Debt and Banking – An Update says:
October 22nd, 2006
at 8:15 pm
[…] Prev/Next Posts « Consolidated Banking | Sunday, October 22nd, 2006 at 6:33 pm […]
Leave a Reply