Banking Day The New Financial Life Has Begun

In my last post, Making Uniformed Decisions When Banking, I discussed in part the old me and how I went right to that when I was excited I was approved for the bank account at a certain banking establishment. Instead of researching I just willy nilly applied at one got approved and went woohoo!! I should have researched then applied.

So I did my research and wrote my lists of pros and cons. I found only one bank in my area where banking would be convenient as well (an important factor for me as it is part of keeping me organized enough) that had a promotion $50 to start a new account. That's a pretty good promotion. None of the other banks even had those little gifts they give you but that's not really what is most important in the grand scheme of things I was soon to find out. The bank that did have the $50 for opening an account also did not have half of the features I was looking for and their fee schedule was a bit much for me, when I look at what fees I usually encounter I wanted to find a bank that had no fees or low fees for those items.

After all my research at about 5 or so different banks I came to my conclusion and guess what? It was the original bank I hastily applied at and went woohoo about. I opened two checking accounts with them and a savings account (which is also linked to both checking accounts as an overdraft protection). I think I will open another savings with ING Direct as well but I'm going to wait a bit on it.

While I still ended up in the same place I am so glad I did do the research and did it all the right way so that I could practice safe and healthy financial decisions. Part of becoming healthy financially is doing those things consistently.

Now I must really try and reach my goal of creating a budget so I know what goes into what account and work on keeping it balanced. I need to pick a day to do that weekly balancing and going over the budget that will work for me.

Picture by: Terri Zwierzynki