temeculaguy May30– Flu was saying that American Express rocked and it was Citibank whose customer service stank and which had the automated warning thingy.
AN June 1– Chase just sucked down WaMu who had previously sucked down I-forget-who. Long story short is they are sitting on a lot of mortgage kryptonite. I think they are also desperate to boost their cash reserves b/c of the spate of advertising telling people they are a great bank and “will make you happy.” It is very reminiscint of WaMu’s burst of “free range checking” ads with the cute baby chicks, urging people to open checking accounts with them. The checking account ads ran right up until WaMu went tiny toes up.
I consider Chase, B of A, and (alas my own bank) Wells Fargo to be the Kryptonite Big three; they have a lot of crap mortgages in their gullets and it remains to be seen if they will survive it.
I keep my Wells working checking and savings accounts out of nostalgia (my branch really is a nice bunch of people) but I have moved most of my assets off into Union Bank of California and my credit union.
To check out the health rating of a bank or credit union you are investigating, check out Safe and Sound. This link, and the UBOC tip, are courtesy of other Piggs some months ago– thanks!
As far as my credit cards, I am yet another 0% balance person. I have two– one from a credit union I joined while in the military 25 years ago, and the “spare” one through USAA (another military connection). The military credit union one is a pretty conservative, plain-vanilla-type account with a lower interest rate and a pretty low max balance (like $2,500). I have several small automatic charges to it each month (donations and paying my ISP), plus a few incidental purchases (Amazon mostly) and I pay it off in full every month.
In fact I log my credit card purchases on my checkbook ledger as well, in another column which I call “mental savings for Visa”, and subtract them from my running checkbook balance. No, the charges did not come out of my checking account at this point. I’m just declaring that money “spoke for” (by the Visa card). When the Visa bill comes in I add the “mental savings” back onto my checking account balance in my ledger, then use it to pay my CC bill. This way I never get “sticker shock” to my checking account when the CC bill comes around, because I have already allowed for it. Probably a wierd way of doing things but it works for my brain wiring 🙂
Oh, and the CC company (my credit union) has not so much as uttered a squeak about my card in recent months. We are just ticking along the way we have for 10 years– I run up a small balance, they send me the bill each month, and I pay it off in full. Per Flu’s comments, I must be their model customer.
