5 ms·

You Need a Backup Bank

46 points by josephcsible 2y ago

josefritzishere 2y ago
Affirmative
jakub_g 2y ago
Also, you may lose your bank card randomly any time (lost wallet etc). While waiting for the new card, having some cash at home and/or backup account with with a backup card at home can be useful.
- dc3k 2y ago
  Who uses cards anymore? I don't even carry a wallet. Everything has been tap to pay on phones for years now.
  - Scoundreller 2y ago
    Depends on country. Some still apply their contactless limits to Apple Pay: https://support.apple.com/en-qa/118627 https://support.apple.com/en-qa/118627 e.g.: > France > You might not be able to use Apple Pay for purchases over 50 EUR. > Canada > You might not be able to use Apple Pay for purchases over 250 CAD
  - 1oooqooq 2y ago
    It must be nice to never travel anywhere.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
    Too much of my life is dependent upon this glass rectangle to also make it the lynchpin for my finances.
    - Zambyte 2y ago
      Yep, I'm running the exact opposite direction as the person you replied to. I just turned on my phone for the first time since Monday. I've had it sitting in my sock drawer all week. I just do all of my communication on my desktop these days (and obviously I pay for things with the contents of my wallet). It makes it much easier to disconnect on my own terms.
zafka 2y ago
On another note, alternate between two credit cards. I found out the hard way that cards that are classified as business cards are not reported to the ratings agencies even if they were acquired with your personal SS#. I cannot put into words my distaste for the way credit scores are being handled.
- josefritzishere 2y ago
  Credit scores were invented in 1989. Most countries don't have them at all. (UK, US, Canada, Spain, China and Japan do) Personally, I think they should be illegal.
  - complaintdept 2y ago
    The funny thing they were supposed to provide more equitible and fair decisions in issuing loans, but the exact opposite happened.
    - Scoundreller 2y ago
      And still at the end of the day, lenders mostly care whether you earn enough to pay. The credit rating is mainly a way to check how much credit you already have available and whether you’re up to date or not. Oh, and verify your identity (probably the primary purpose of them).
t0mas88 2y ago
Absolutely. It's surprising that not everyone does this. I have two bank accounts, each with a card and Apple pay. My "backup bank" costs about 3 euros / month for a simple payments account, savings and a creditcard. My main creditcard is a separate Amex, but having a backup Visa card is useful also because Amex acceptance is still not great in Europe. For less than 50 euros per year that's a lot of redundancy.
- Scoundreller 2y ago
  Meanwhile in USA, paying a monthly fee for a basic bank account means you need to look for a new bank.
  - t0mas88 2y ago
    Are accounts free in the US? My impression was that you pay all kinds of fees for everything with most banks. That 3 euros includes free ATM usage in nearly all of Europe and no fees on transactions within Europe. It's a lot less than what I paid in banking costs when I was living outside the EU.
    - Scoundreller 2y ago
      The accounts are typically free, but they love to nail you on things like going overdraft by 1 cent or "inactivity fees" or other BS. US Credit cards will only have fees if you get some super premium ones (and even then, there are often promos for that to zero out the fee temporarily or long-term).
      - 1oooqooq 2y ago
        in the USA you are more likely to pay for not using your card.
    - xenospn 2y ago
      If you have money, a lot of things are free in the US. Ironic, I know.
    - 2y ago
oldmariner 2y ago
You also need multiple credit cards. I mostly use cash everywhere I go, but I have one credit card for autopay items, and another credit card for random purchases. I have a third card for temporary use should either of the first two cards be hit with fraud and I need to wait for a replacement card in the mail. If you don't want to have multiple credit card accounts, you can often get a second card on the same account with a different name and use that one. If you write checks, you should do that from a seperate account because everything someone needs to steal your money is written on the front of the check.
- AstroJetson 2y ago
  I have multiple cards with multiple providers. I make an effort twice a year to run transactions through them to keep them active. The rewards card gets the most activity, the others are there as backup. I've had the main card "stolen" a few times. Even with free overnight shipping it takes 2 days to get the card and activate the account. Having a backup card makes that less painless.
- thr0w 2y ago
  You don't need any credit cards. I've never had a credit card, and it's caused me 0 friction in life.
  - lurking_swe 2y ago
    don’t most hotels strongly prefer a credit card on file? i think they typically put a large hold on a debit card. could be an issue for some.
  - xenospn 2y ago
    You probably don’t go anywhere, because I travel a lot and trying to only use cash would’ve been a huge burden.
    - daelon 2y ago
      There are more options than "credit cards" and "cash".
water9 2y ago
You need Gold not a second bank
Willish42 2y ago
> How you bank can screw you over This is the first heading 3 paragraphs into the article (note the typo in "you"). Do people ... not even read their own writing before publishing an article these days? I understand people don't want to "waste" money on editors but most random dev blogs have fewer typos than sites like this where content is _monetized_ through ads. I bank with one of the main US companies and probably should look into using a second, but setting up credit cards etc. at each one seems like a bad idea... IMO, this is why we should have basic banking through USPS or some other federal organization. I don't care what it costs or why private organizations with [clear histories of fraud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_cross-selling_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_cross-selling_scan...) are supposedly better. We should just have better nationalized banking offerings (airlines and healthcare too for that matter) and remove this problem altogether.
- add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
  > Do people ... not even read their own writing before publishing You can't even trust someone has written their own writing anymore.
- RA2lover 2y ago
  I don't see it as a typo. Bank is being used as a verbed form of "use banking services", and the text that follows provides an example of how using only a single banking service provider can screw you over.
  - Willish42 2y ago
    I hadn't considered the interpretation where "bank" is a verb. Thank you for clarifying, this was driving me crazy! The semantics of "how you <do thing> can screw you over" is still a bit odd, as "screw over" is typically done by people in the English language ("the mailman screwed me over" reads better than "the mailbox screwed me over" or "how I closed the mailbox screwed me over"), but that's less egregious than the obvious typo I took it for (assuming noun form of "bank"). I digress...
  - animal_spirits 2y ago
litmus 2y ago
First world problems. Failed state immigrants will kindly remind you that what you really need is a Backup Country, you just don't know it yet.
Marietta040 2y ago
[dead]
joshstrange 2y ago
Backup banks and credit cards are a must and tools like YNAB make that even easier. You don’t have to use YNAB but consider using something as a layer on top of all your financial institutions. YNAB lets me not care where my money lives or where I spend it from. I can easily store money in a HYSA and lose none of my tracking/budgeting tools. As long as there is enough money in my auto-pay source account then I’m good to go. Late last year one of my banks closed down (HMBradley), I was using it primarily for its HYSA. YNAB made the whole process stupid easy and even after I lose access to the historical records for that bank (neo-bank/fintech org/whatever you want to call it) I will still have the full history in YNAB. I used to rely on budgeting and tracking tools built into a single bank (Simple) but YNAB lets me not care about the UI/UX of my bank and use it as a big dumb envelope while I use YNAB to budget and plan. Again, it doesn’t have to be YNAB, that’s just what I like and what worked for me.

46 points by josephcsible 2y ago

Affirmative

Also, you may lose your bank card randomly any time (lost wallet etc). While waiting for the new card, having some cash at home and/or backup account with with a backup card at home can be useful.

dc3k 2y ago
Who uses cards anymore? I don't even carry a wallet. Everything has been tap to pay on phones for years now.
- Scoundreller 2y ago
  Depends on country. Some still apply their contactless limits to Apple Pay: https://support.apple.com/en-qa/118627 https://support.apple.com/en-qa/118627 e.g.: > France > You might not be able to use Apple Pay for purchases over 50 EUR. > Canada > You might not be able to use Apple Pay for purchases over 250 CAD
- 1oooqooq 2y ago
  It must be nice to never travel anywhere.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
  Too much of my life is dependent upon this glass rectangle to also make it the lynchpin for my finances.
  - Zambyte 2y ago
    Yep, I'm running the exact opposite direction as the person you replied to. I just turned on my phone for the first time since Monday. I've had it sitting in my sock drawer all week. I just do all of my communication on my desktop these days (and obviously I pay for things with the contents of my wallet). It makes it much easier to disconnect on my own terms.

zafka 2y ago

On another note, alternate between two credit cards. I found out the hard way that cards that are classified as business cards are not reported to the ratings agencies even if they were acquired with your personal SS#. I cannot put into words my distaste for the way credit scores are being handled.

josefritzishere 2y ago
Credit scores were invented in 1989. Most countries don't have them at all. (UK, US, Canada, Spain, China and Japan do) Personally, I think they should be illegal.
- complaintdept 2y ago
  The funny thing they were supposed to provide more equitible and fair decisions in issuing loans, but the exact opposite happened.
  - Scoundreller 2y ago
    And still at the end of the day, lenders mostly care whether you earn enough to pay. The credit rating is mainly a way to check how much credit you already have available and whether you’re up to date or not. Oh, and verify your identity (probably the primary purpose of them).

t0mas88 2y ago

Absolutely. It's surprising that not everyone does this. I have two bank accounts, each with a card and Apple pay. My "backup bank" costs about 3 euros / month for a simple payments account, savings and a creditcard. My main creditcard is a separate Amex, but having a backup Visa card is useful also because Amex acceptance is still not great in Europe. For less than 50 euros per year that's a lot of redundancy.

Scoundreller 2y ago
Meanwhile in USA, paying a monthly fee for a basic bank account means you need to look for a new bank.
- t0mas88 2y ago
  Are accounts free in the US? My impression was that you pay all kinds of fees for everything with most banks. That 3 euros includes free ATM usage in nearly all of Europe and no fees on transactions within Europe. It's a lot less than what I paid in banking costs when I was living outside the EU.
  - Scoundreller 2y ago
    The accounts are typically free, but they love to nail you on things like going overdraft by 1 cent or "inactivity fees" or other BS. US Credit cards will only have fees if you get some super premium ones (and even then, there are often promos for that to zero out the fee temporarily or long-term).
    - 1oooqooq 2y ago
      in the USA you are more likely to pay for not using your card.
  - xenospn 2y ago
    If you have money, a lot of things are free in the US. Ironic, I know.
  - 2y ago

oldmariner 2y ago

You also need multiple credit cards. I mostly use cash everywhere I go, but I have one credit card for autopay items, and another credit card for random purchases. I have a third card for temporary use should either of the first two cards be hit with fraud and I need to wait for a replacement card in the mail. If you don't want to have multiple credit card accounts, you can often get a second card on the same account with a different name and use that one. If you write checks, you should do that from a seperate account because everything someone needs to steal your money is written on the front of the check.

AstroJetson 2y ago
I have multiple cards with multiple providers. I make an effort twice a year to run transactions through them to keep them active. The rewards card gets the most activity, the others are there as backup. I've had the main card "stolen" a few times. Even with free overnight shipping it takes 2 days to get the card and activate the account. Having a backup card makes that less painless.
thr0w 2y ago
You don't need any credit cards. I've never had a credit card, and it's caused me 0 friction in life.
- lurking_swe 2y ago
  don’t most hotels strongly prefer a credit card on file? i think they typically put a large hold on a debit card. could be an issue for some.
- xenospn 2y ago
  You probably don’t go anywhere, because I travel a lot and trying to only use cash would’ve been a huge burden.
  - daelon 2y ago
    There are more options than "credit cards" and "cash".

water9 2y ago

You need Gold not a second bank

Willish42 2y ago

> How you bank can screw you over This is the first heading 3 paragraphs into the article (note the typo in "you"). Do people ... not even read their own writing before publishing an article these days? I understand people don't want to "waste" money on editors but most random dev blogs have fewer typos than sites like this where content is _monetized_ through ads. I bank with one of the main US companies and probably should look into using a second, but setting up credit cards etc. at each one seems like a bad idea... IMO, this is why we should have basic banking through USPS or some other federal organization. I don't care what it costs or why private organizations with [clear histories of fraud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_cross-selling_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_cross-selling_scan...) are supposedly better. We should just have better nationalized banking offerings (airlines and healthcare too for that matter) and remove this problem altogether.

add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
> Do people ... not even read their own writing before publishing You can't even trust someone has written their own writing anymore.
RA2lover 2y ago
I don't see it as a typo. Bank is being used as a verbed form of "use banking services", and the text that follows provides an example of how using only a single banking service provider can screw you over.
- Willish42 2y ago
  I hadn't considered the interpretation where "bank" is a verb. Thank you for clarifying, this was driving me crazy! The semantics of "how you <do thing> can screw you over" is still a bit odd, as "screw over" is typically done by people in the English language ("the mailman screwed me over" reads better than "the mailbox screwed me over" or "how I closed the mailbox screwed me over"), but that's less egregious than the obvious typo I took it for (assuming noun form of "bank"). I digress...
- animal_spirits 2y ago

litmus 2y ago

First world problems. Failed state immigrants will kindly remind you that what you really need is a Backup Country, you just don't know it yet.

Marietta040 2y ago

[dead]

joshstrange 2y ago

Backup banks and credit cards are a must and tools like YNAB make that even easier. You don’t have to use YNAB but consider using something as a layer on top of all your financial institutions. YNAB lets me not care where my money lives or where I spend it from. I can easily store money in a HYSA and lose none of my tracking/budgeting tools. As long as there is enough money in my auto-pay source account then I’m good to go. Late last year one of my banks closed down (HMBradley), I was using it primarily for its HYSA. YNAB made the whole process stupid easy and even after I lose access to the historical records for that bank (neo-bank/fintech org/whatever you want to call it) I will still have the full history in YNAB. I used to rely on budgeting and tracking tools built into a single bank (Simple) but YNAB lets me not care about the UI/UX of my bank and use it as a big dumb envelope while I use YNAB to budget and plan. Again, it doesn’t have to be YNAB, that’s just what I like and what worked for me.