People often reminisce about the good ol’ days but those times weren’t always that great. I don’t even remember when I walked into the local bank branch last, but here I was, waiting in line just to let the clerk process a deposit into my daughter’s savings account.
Was the place busy because it was the end of the year? Or is the branch always busy? There was a line for the tellers, every financial consultant was chatting with families, and there were even people waiting at the couches with their free coffee in hand.
Maybe they just needed a place to stay while the rain passed through? This has got to be the reason. After all, you can do pretty much everything online these days without any wait. I certainly wouldn’t have blaze the storm if I took the time to sign all those authorization forms to set up online banking for my daughter’s account.
I’m not really complaining though. I’m just grateful the virtual world allowed me to handle everything electronically and how the innovation propelled my finances higher because making the right moves is so more convenient these days. What do I mean? Let me tell you what I had to do before online banking came along.
I used to pay bills by mail. Tearing the bill along the dotted line, signing a check, putting everything in an envelope, writing the address, paying for postage and getting it mailed used to take hours every month. And when you get a bill claiming you didn’t pay the bill last? You have to go back to your records to figure out whether the check was cashed, stop payment and all the good stuff. Now a good portion of the bills are paid with a credit card and the rest are done by the bank’s bill pay system. Easy peasy.
I have to call an automated line and go through the annoyingly cumbersome menu of choices just to make a transfer to a savings account. Sending money to the brokerage account was worst, because a check had to be written and mailed to the investment firm just to make a deposit! This archaic process also meant that more people were prone to just stick with choices tied to the bank administering their checking account just to save themselves time. They, of course, lost out whenever the competition offered a more compelling product but at least they are saving some money. I’m sure there were many others didn’t even save at all because the mere act of putting money into savings was so cumbersome. Nowadays, you can click a few buttons and the money will be electronically transferred to the best savings or investment account of your choice. You can even go one step further and setup automating savings via scheduled transfers. Set it up to move a portion of your paycheck every payday and you won’t even miss the money. I’ve been doing this and it’s incredible how much money I’ve accumulated after two decades of saving consistently.
I kept quite a bit of money in the no-interest checking account at all times, losing out on hundreds of dollars in interests every year. There weren’t interest bearing checking accounts like they do now either. I could track every bill and manage the account better, but that would take a gigantic amount of time and mental energy because there would be many bills in transit as every bill takes weeks to be withdrawn from my account since each check has to move its way through the USPS system and then the company takes time to cash the checks. There’s almost no chance of over drafting the account even if you keep just a minimal amount in the checking account these days because you only get one credit card statement for all the purchases and payments are managed automatically if you use bill pay. Now if we could get the yield on savings accounts back up, then we can take more advantage of this.
I love talking about the good ol’ days too but I rather live in modern times when banking online is so common and convenient.
Radius Bank certainly agrees because they’ve sponsored me to write this piece about online banking. All opinions are of course my own though. How do you feel about online banking though? Do you remember how banking was like before the Internet changed everything?
{ read the comments below or add one }
No I don’t miss the old days at all. Sure the interest rate you get from savings is higher but inflation was also high. You can also invest for almost free these days so today is definitely the better time to be in.
The modern times are definitely better. Owning the market via the Vanguard Total Index Fund for 0.05% a year and you can buy and sell with a few clicks most days of the week? That’s an incredible deal people can only dream of even just ten years ago.
Sure inflation was high back then but so were interest rates on CD’s. As a young adult I took out 5 year CD’s at over 12%. The message holds true as much today as it always has, live within your means or below it if you can afford to. And the Vangaurd fund is a tremendous choice for low fees and to try and stay ahead of inflation. When John Bogle started this fund in 1975 the investment community thought he was nuts. They have definitely changed their minds since then by trying to catch up to the example that the Vangaurd funds leads the industry in. That’s also why the “Oracle of Omaha” aka Warren Buffett suggested these funds for the bulk of his estate when he’s gone.
John Bogle definitely stated a revolution that changed the investment landscape forever. Vanguard’s index funds have been attacked for decades and still, it’s clear that more and more people are turning to this form of investing. Bogle wasn’t kidding when he said that he’s trying to give investors a fair shake.
The days when we were writing checks WERE the good old days! There was a wait to do everything but you didn’t have to remember passwords.
Pick your poison!
Ha true dat! Have you thought about password managers? The applications cost a bit of money but you just have to remember one password for all your websites, plus you can use really cryptic passwords so it’s more secure!
I do remember the old days when for the first 20+ years of my life you would earn 5% on passbook savings at a bank and 5-1/4% at a savings and loan. You can’t even get half that on a 5 year CD. Most financial institutions now only pay .05% with some even as low as .01%. And worse yet, some of those have high minimum balances just to get those pathetic rates. So I would easily trade the cost of postage & time to write checks to go back to those rates. Banks are a joke now and I only use them as a tool like they have used us for so many years.
Ahh getting 5% on savings now would be awesome. The Fed just announced that they are hoping to go back to 3% short term rates in a few years, so we might one day get back to 4 or 5% at online savings accounts. You never know!