New Things

Today, my husband and I made a pretty big decision. We have changed banks. For most people, this is no big deal, but I've been with the same bank for almost all of my adult life. Unfortunately, that bank got "scared" when the stock market bottomed out, and started doing everything they could to bring in money. Part of that was charging what I consider to be outlandish fees.

I've been asking other people what bank they use and if they're happy with them for a few months, and I got mostly the same answer back. The name of the bank, and yes, they've been happy with them. Never had any problems. We went to that bank first. Stupid bank insists that you have a piece of mail with your PHYSICAL address on it, or they won't open the account. I happened to have with me a piece of mail with hubby's name and the physical address, but nothing with my name. It's a joint account. We have the same last name. We have the same P.O. Box address on our driver's license. Not good enough. I took the high road (almost literally) and told them I would take our business elsewhere.

The second bank was much friendlier. They were willing to answer all of my questions before they asked for identification. We got free t-shirts! (But no toaster.) They requested our physical address, and accepted our driver's license as ID. Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. New checks and bank cards should be here in about a week. And, oh yes, they are paying for the first order of checks.

Now comes the harder part...switching all of our direct deposits and automatic withdrawls to the new account. And closing the old accounts. (We had both savings and checking at the old bank.)

Wish me luck on this new endeavor.