Settling In
Feb. 21st, 2012 11:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robertsloan2Readers who follow my LiveJournal (where I am also robertsloan2) know that I've lived all over the country in every major region, moving out of state every two or three years due to circumstances beyond my control. Until now. I spent five years living with my adopted daughter "Kitten" and her family - two cool grandkids, world's best son in law big Norse guy carpenter/anthropologist, their dogs(!) who are very well trained and their cat Gemini, a tiny tortie.
I moved to San Francisco on August 1st. I've been settling in ever since. I did it on a shoestring. I had been saving up to come home to my beloved city but my savings got shot down by a couple of other emergencies and having to move sooner was very rough. I did it. That was an enormous effort. I wound up collapsing in December after running on empty from the middle of May when I started packing. But I got it done.
Not fast and not well, it cost a lot of money making up for not being able to do all the running around and dealing with services and banks and things in the first month the way I would have if I was abled. It all got done though. When I finally got around to starting an account at a local credit union I was so happy.
Credit unions are always better than banks.
I support the Occupy movement. "Move your Money" is a great protest. Do not shaft yourself using the big giant banks that got bailed out. They're for-profit. They are there to shaft you and unless you're past your first million, they'll scrape you off their shoe. I've used several of those big banks back when I did work and always had trouble with them. Any problem would take forever to solve if they even solved it. Any problem on my part was penalized rather than sorted out. Just getting to talk to a human being at one of their branches was a nightmare and they'd patronize me as if I was some kind of lesser being. I also paid a ton more for services than I would've if I was wealthy.
Credit unions are the opposite. You own the place. You are an investor. They mean it when your account is a Member Account. Your savings gets invested in other members' homes and cars. It's like that little savings and loan in "It's a Wonderful Life" - it's all human scale and flows into your local economy. It helps keep that cool deli or bakery you like to eat at going too.
I pay less fees than I ever did at a real bank. There's always help on the phone or online. Even the website for my credit union is easier to log into and use than the one for my previous bank - which I do have to say was a good bank. It was a little local one, not as nasty as the big ones but it got merged with another bank before I left. Actual banks are always at risk of that.
So if you're using one of the big banks, think about finding a local credit union. You'll pay less, get treated better, get better services and do good for your neighborhood while helping to reduce the giant monopoly banks by one less customer.
Why I'm writing about it today... I got in a Google check and had an old DeviantART prints check that I couldn't cash at the check cashing place. It wasn't not valid, it was good for a year, but it was too old for the check cashing place. I didn't have deposit slips on me so didn't mail them in to deposit them. Been worried a bit over how to take care of it and finally decided to go in person and pick up some deposit slips when I do.
Turns out I don't need them. Today I called them and asked. I was able to send my home care worker on the deposit errand by writing my member number on the back with my signature so it goes into the right account - and specifying "savings" so they know whether it goes in checking or savings. That was it. No trouble. She went, my checks are deposited, my finances are solid and I actually have a bit of savings again.
I let my Street Artist Program license lapse without using it because winter weather knocked me over. I didn't have the body energy to go out and get started even once, though one good day would have paid to renew it. My good days were taken up with necessity trips like medical appointments and grocery shopping and so on. Now that "depositing checks" is something I can have IHSS home care workers do, it's not a problem. I'll renew in the summer when the weather's better and I can get something out of it beyond just paying for itself.
I still have a lot of other things to do before I'm completely moved in. Half my stuff is still in Arkansas, most of the boxes are books or art supplies that have to do with the business. The personal stuff, I decided to let Kitten go through it and reduce the quantity. I'll tell her what few things are important and let her get rid of most of the rest. Books and art supplies have priority along with a few religious objects and crafts items for personal hobbies.
So I feel good about it. Once again my credit union makes life easier and treated me so well in person that I feel great. I don't need to be nervous about financial stuff any more with them on my side - it makes a huge difference. With the big banks I was always justifiably nervous of any transaction because they'd be patronizing, insulting and sock me with unexpected fees for anything and everything. Credit union is the opposite. Its motto ought to be "We don't charge that fee." lol
There's a cat foot on my shoulder. Ari is sleeping on the back of the chair. He just stretched out to lean his hind foot on my shoulder. That's a beautiful feeling - soft little cat foot, gentle pressure, silent reminder "I'm here and I love you." I enjoy being cat furniture but that's normal for any cat lover. If you don't find the sight of a sleeping cat endearing, you're probably more of a dog person.
I moved to San Francisco on August 1st. I've been settling in ever since. I did it on a shoestring. I had been saving up to come home to my beloved city but my savings got shot down by a couple of other emergencies and having to move sooner was very rough. I did it. That was an enormous effort. I wound up collapsing in December after running on empty from the middle of May when I started packing. But I got it done.
Not fast and not well, it cost a lot of money making up for not being able to do all the running around and dealing with services and banks and things in the first month the way I would have if I was abled. It all got done though. When I finally got around to starting an account at a local credit union I was so happy.
Credit unions are always better than banks.
I support the Occupy movement. "Move your Money" is a great protest. Do not shaft yourself using the big giant banks that got bailed out. They're for-profit. They are there to shaft you and unless you're past your first million, they'll scrape you off their shoe. I've used several of those big banks back when I did work and always had trouble with them. Any problem would take forever to solve if they even solved it. Any problem on my part was penalized rather than sorted out. Just getting to talk to a human being at one of their branches was a nightmare and they'd patronize me as if I was some kind of lesser being. I also paid a ton more for services than I would've if I was wealthy.
Credit unions are the opposite. You own the place. You are an investor. They mean it when your account is a Member Account. Your savings gets invested in other members' homes and cars. It's like that little savings and loan in "It's a Wonderful Life" - it's all human scale and flows into your local economy. It helps keep that cool deli or bakery you like to eat at going too.
I pay less fees than I ever did at a real bank. There's always help on the phone or online. Even the website for my credit union is easier to log into and use than the one for my previous bank - which I do have to say was a good bank. It was a little local one, not as nasty as the big ones but it got merged with another bank before I left. Actual banks are always at risk of that.
So if you're using one of the big banks, think about finding a local credit union. You'll pay less, get treated better, get better services and do good for your neighborhood while helping to reduce the giant monopoly banks by one less customer.
Why I'm writing about it today... I got in a Google check and had an old DeviantART prints check that I couldn't cash at the check cashing place. It wasn't not valid, it was good for a year, but it was too old for the check cashing place. I didn't have deposit slips on me so didn't mail them in to deposit them. Been worried a bit over how to take care of it and finally decided to go in person and pick up some deposit slips when I do.
Turns out I don't need them. Today I called them and asked. I was able to send my home care worker on the deposit errand by writing my member number on the back with my signature so it goes into the right account - and specifying "savings" so they know whether it goes in checking or savings. That was it. No trouble. She went, my checks are deposited, my finances are solid and I actually have a bit of savings again.
I let my Street Artist Program license lapse without using it because winter weather knocked me over. I didn't have the body energy to go out and get started even once, though one good day would have paid to renew it. My good days were taken up with necessity trips like medical appointments and grocery shopping and so on. Now that "depositing checks" is something I can have IHSS home care workers do, it's not a problem. I'll renew in the summer when the weather's better and I can get something out of it beyond just paying for itself.
I still have a lot of other things to do before I'm completely moved in. Half my stuff is still in Arkansas, most of the boxes are books or art supplies that have to do with the business. The personal stuff, I decided to let Kitten go through it and reduce the quantity. I'll tell her what few things are important and let her get rid of most of the rest. Books and art supplies have priority along with a few religious objects and crafts items for personal hobbies.
So I feel good about it. Once again my credit union makes life easier and treated me so well in person that I feel great. I don't need to be nervous about financial stuff any more with them on my side - it makes a huge difference. With the big banks I was always justifiably nervous of any transaction because they'd be patronizing, insulting and sock me with unexpected fees for anything and everything. Credit union is the opposite. Its motto ought to be "We don't charge that fee." lol
There's a cat foot on my shoulder. Ari is sleeping on the back of the chair. He just stretched out to lean his hind foot on my shoulder. That's a beautiful feeling - soft little cat foot, gentle pressure, silent reminder "I'm here and I love you." I enjoy being cat furniture but that's normal for any cat lover. If you don't find the sight of a sleeping cat endearing, you're probably more of a dog person.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-22 12:11 pm (UTC)Good point
Date: 2012-02-22 09:11 pm (UTC)There's no reason anyone needs to stick with the monster monopoly banks. There are literally no advantages to them since small banks and credit unions are FDIC insured too. If anything, they're more dangerous.
Even if I got very wealthy I might be more inclined to just spread it around to more small institutions than try to deal with BoA or any of those evil giants. Corruption is too easy in that context. It's a private company so it hasn't even got the letter of the law against corruption, it's about profit anyway so anything that increases the bottom line is right in line with its founding principles and in a lot of ways it looks like they're being raided by overpaid predatory CEOs.
One thing I noticed about a lot of these things - large companies that overpay for a big name CEO wind up losing massive profits that could go to shareholders to paying for those bonuses, golden parachutes, benefits and salaries. It's like there's a special breed of con man that goes after big companies and shills them.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-07 04:52 pm (UTC)I have run into people who had your husband's idea before - devil you know versus the unknown. I got burned on the big banks in Chicago in 1980 when I went trying to get an account and didn't like the way the giant ones treated me as insignificant - even when I had a good job! They were rude and hidebound, rules-crazy, wouldn't lift a finger for an individual. I had no idea the depth of corruption behind it but got the impression they didn't even talk to people who had less than $100,000 to put in the bank.
So I got disgusted and looked for a smaller one, which turned out to be less rude, and never trusted the big ones again. That's some of why the news about the giants has no emotional shock. From how rude they were in the 1980s I knew they had to be getting their money some other way than through customers.