Apr

7

on the long road to financial literacy

April 7, 2007 |

So I’m on “Month One” of Women and Money, and taking it all quite literally and to heart. This section is all about savings and checking accounts, which I thought I basically understood, but it seems there’s more to all this stuff than I realized.

Long story short, I’m changing banks.

I like my current bank a lot. Their ads are shiny and fun. Their branches are easy to find in the city. Their personnel are competent and helpful. I’ve only very rarely had problems with my account (as opposed to the frequent bank horror stories coming from my friends), and when they’ve come up, they’ve almost always been solved quickly. They are competent and efficient in almost everything. But their standard savings account sucks. $5 monthly fees and 0.25% APY? I know I haven’t paid much attention to this account since I got it, but really, what was I smoking? I can do better. Their checking plan actually isn’t bad at all, but I can probably do better there, too.

To help me in the bank-shopping process, I’ve fallen back to my crack-like addiction to Excel spreadsheets. Comparing the basics and perks from one bank to the next, I realize that the powers that be at my bank are not the only guilty parties in lowballing their savings interest/APY rates, plenty of the big chains around here do the same. This can only mean that, like me, many people have been asleep at the wheel when it comes to personal finance strategy. Amazing, really.

One option I was looking at to switch is ING Direct, which is apparently a totally online bank. It’s got good rates and, interestingly, an interest-bearing checking account sans ridiculous restrictions and absurd minimum balances. The “online-only” thing, though, weirds me out a little. They’re supposedly hooked up through a certain ATM chain with surcharge-free withdrawals for checking, but I just don’t think I’d be comfortable without a branch I could go to with questions or concerns. Also, one of the nice things about my old bank is that about a year ago, I made an appointment to talk about financial planning with one of their reps, and got an hour of great advice and a ton of literature on the subject for free. The internet can only do so much.

Anyway, I know this is all absurdly boring to many of you, but I’m having a ton of fun exploring all this. It is quite empowering to finally be sitting down and getting a handle on all the personal finance stuff. And there are less productive things to do with a weekend, for sure.

Oh, and in case anyone’s concerned that I’m going to become some kind of Suze Orman cultist, I should point out that I’m retaining my independence in at least a few ways. I’m certainly looking outside her limited recommendations for bank options, and I found a much better deal (for me–it would probably have been different if I’d been planning on making any big financial decisions anytime soon) on credit score tracking than the one she recommends in her online supplement to The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke, which I also very much enjoyed. As the saying goes, I consider this a fishing lesson rather than an easy fish handout. I just like being able to do things myself.

On that note, I know they do some basic job and computer training classes and workshops, and thinking about all this, I’m wondering if Lit Partners has anything set up in terms of financial literacy classes for its students. I don’t see it listed on their website, but who knows. Most of my students don’t speak English as their first language, many are immigrants and I can’t imagine they’ve had much time or opportunity to delve into this stuff. With families, kids and welfare support, they need this kind of information much more than I do. Classes were out this week, but next week, I think I’m going to ask.


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