The first step was opening the accounts at the credit union. Now that the new account is open, I can start moving money over. However, I don’t want to close all of my bank accounts all at once. I have a number of things linked to those accounts that I wouldn’t want to mess up by closing them.
The first are checks that I’ve written. I need to make sure that all of the checks that I’ve written to other people and businesses have been cashed before I close my checking account. The next are the autopay bills. I have my mortgage, student loans, and other bills that are all paid automatically out of that account. I need to switch those over to the credit union, before I find myself defaulting on those payments.
With the credit card I have with Bank of America, I need to double check that everything that is automatically charged to that card is switched over to a new method of payment, before I close it. I also need to make sure I’ve cashed in all of my rewards points! Don’t want to miss those.
To make sure that I have everything covered, I am going to leave my checking account open for a few weeks before I transfer all of the assets. Then I will have to physically go to the bank to close all of them. For Bank of America, you can’t close it online.
I hope that if you’re thinking about divesting from private banks that this was helpful to you! The next thing on our list for #FinancialFitness2018 is the next bucket from the Bucket Strategy; your midterm bucket! I’ll be touching on that tomorrow, and then we’re going to move on to our retirement bucket.
Stay tuned!