@mylocaltech I am not asking about what I should invest in. I am asking where I should keep my fiat and get a debit card from.

@freemo Id still recomend a cryptocurrency

@mylocaltech

And how do you expect me to use that to pay my mortgage, or my electric bill?

@freemo paypal? convert the currency when you want to spend it, or keep it under the mattress. By the way nice protoboard designs!

@mylocaltech thank you.

Then you would basically be suggesting paypal as my bank. Which is a fine option

For the record it is never a good idea to keep too much in fiat, so regardless of if i invested in crypto or anything else, the idea that you mostly only keep cash on hand you need is generally good advice.

All this still kind of avoids the underlying question, where do I keep my fiat, what bank. Paypal is no less of a bank than anyone else.

Thanks the protoboards are a lot of fun to work with.

@freemo @mylocaltech I think most #PayPal users know that PP is a highly risky place to keep money. PayPal has a reputation for seizing money for the most obscure reasons, so wise users keep a zero balance in PP. And ethical ppl don't use PP at all.

@koherecoWatchdog

I only use it if i have to use ebay but its rare.

@mylocaltech

@mylocaltech @freemo Using #PayPal is always a bad idea: https://git.disroot.org/cyberMonk/liberethos_paradigm/src/branch/master/rap_sheets/paypal.md

@koherecoWatchdog

I dont think anyone suggested paypal did they?

I myself dont use paypal.

@mylocaltech

@freemo @mylocaltech it was in the msg I replied to. Hit "expand toot".

@freemo

JPMorgan Chase

i don't know much about it tbh.
High score online, FYI 🏦

@Sphinx Thanks. I'm looking for people who use it or have special features though...

@Sphinx @freemo Chase is, so far, my favorite retail bank. They have an excellent mobile app and web app. They also have convenient ATM access in my area. The worst retail bank I have used is Wells Fargo, and I wasn’t at all surprised at all the fraud exposed recently.

I use ledger for my financial bookkeeping and Chase supports downloads in multiple compatible formats. I have not yet automated this process (I do this ETL quarterly) but they apparently support OFX: http://www.ofxhome.com/index.php/institution/view/435 which one of these days I’ll wire up into my process.

@rizele A credit union is something I considered. But I am more interested in actual features in the mobile app than anything.

I recently found Oxygen bank which has virtual cards as a cool feature. Its my top choice at the moment, going to try them out.

@freemo @rizele I was exclusively a credit union consumer for a long time. The primary issue I had was one of convenience: the lack of a decent online experience, and very few brick and mortar locations. As I was moving around cities quite often at the time, it was simply too inconvenient for me.

@wes @freemo That's understandable. I used a big bank for a few years after college. When they got bailed out a decade ago I was pretty settled into my career, and so pulled all my money out to move to a credit union.

Their online banking is clearly some template they bought and changed the logos, but gets the job done.

@rizele

I just have different priority. I care about 2 things 1) the options to invest and make money and 2) the unique features.

Oxygen (what I went with just now) offers virtual cards, havent seen that elsewhere. I also got a Charles Schwab account to move my checking and investments to.

Fees on an atm are such an insanely small part of my expenses it isnt even a motivating factor for me (though I could see it might be for some).

@wes

@freemo @rizele ATM access for me is more about deposits. I’m curious if there are banks that allow non-trivial check deposits via mobile app. The banks I have tried have very low limits, but it is extremely convenient when I’m able to use this feature.

@wes

Every bank i've ever used has accepted check deposits by taking a picture for checks in the 10K - 20K range of which I tend to deposit a few per month.

@rizele

@freemo This is excellent news. I’ll explore my options because this to me is a killer feature.

@rizele I might also go with an account that links closely to investing, charles schwab maybe, not sure....

@freemo Any kind of credit account is another thing to keep separate from savings. Banks are allowed to grab any money from other accounts you have with them to cover debts.

Can't pay a credit card? Poof, there goes the direct deposit from your employer.

@rizele I would never be that irresponsible in the first place. If I take credit, I intend to pay it.

In fact I keep all my credit cards at 0 and get as many as I can just to improve my credit score. I generally use a charge card instead of a credit card too.

@freemo @rizele Okay that's a bad idea, low utilization of available credit will ding you super hard- I've seen a 50 point drop just for underutilizing $800 of credit.

What they want you to do is mostly use your credit cards and then it's fine to balance them out every bill... except that holding a balance and paying on it will build credit better.

I hate credit.

@penny That isnt true at all, not only is it against the official advice, totally contrary to what I see.

The advice is to keep credit utilization below 30% and as low as possible.

I myself have seen my credit go up 50 points simply by bringing my credit utilization to 0 when ti was high. Just recently I also got more credit cards which increased my ceiling by 3x which brought my score up another 26 points (I had near 0 utilization before and after, 3% to be exact).

@penny

I just did some checking to get an exact number. My credit utilization is around 3% where I keep it.. Which explains why I hit an ideal. It would seem most advice suggests the ideal for maximum credit score is from 1% - 10%

https://wallethub.com/answers/cc/best-credit-utilization-ratio-2140666075/#:~:text=The%20best%20credit%20utilization%20ratio%20is%201%25%20to%2010%25.,the%20product%20multiplied%20by%20100.

@rizele

@pthenq1 yea their not bad, nothing special, nothing bad. pretty good every day bank.

@nyetoots Charles schwabb is whatI went with. Only thing I'm not happy about is they did a hard-inquery on my credit when I opened the account and I was unaware they were going to do that.

@freemo @nyetoots Charles #Schwab, #JPMorgan Chase, & #BofA are all terrible recommendations. Chase & BofA are pretty much the most unethical banks in the world: https://git.disroot.org/cyberMonk/liberethos_paradigm/src/branch/master/us_banks.md /cc @Sphinx @pthenq1 @nyetoots

@pthenq1 @Sphinx @nyetoots @freemo I'm not sure you saw the banking list when we recently discussed brokerages, but that list is worth a look. At the bottom of the page are relatively ethical #bcorp banks.