Single Women and Banking is the first in my series on becoming a financially savvy single woman.
How did this idea for a series come about?
Well … I had a very informative post ready to publish about the steps we need to take towards financial independence and becoming a financially savvy single woman. That post was too long, so I’m breaking it down into more manageable chunks.
Just like we should do with anything else in life that seems to overwhelming.
Advice.
Do we really need any more advice?
There’s all kinds of advice out there for single women, but from what I can see, there’s more advice out there on relationships than on finances!
There are many financial experts out there with well-meaning, common sense advice for single women. The big issue I see is that usually the advice giver hasn’t lived through the same experiences as a single woman who’s a low income earner and is struggling to pay the bills.
People earning a 6 figure salary with a net worth of a million dollars and lots of extra money left over each month to invest isn’t something I can relate to. How about you?
Who’s taking care of the finances?
There are many women who never bothered to learn about handling their finances. They might have grown up in a family where dad took care of the money matters. They went straight from the family home to the marriage home where the partner took care of handling the money.
And then suddenly it was just the woman. See my post: Changing your Money Attitudes when you’re Suddenly Single.
Sometimes a woman has to figure out her financial situation real fast.
Click the photo below to find out why it’s never a good idea to let one person in the relationship have all the power when it comes to handling the household finances.
Single women and banking
The first step to becoming an independent, financially savvy women is to open up your own banking account.
Decide whether you want to deal with a bank or a credit union. I want to point out that it’s OK to keep your money in two or three different financial institutions. Don’t feel obligated to keep all your money in one place.
And, no, you don’t need to belong to a union to keep your money at a credit union! Though there are some credit unions set up specifically for certain unions, their locations are not well-known to the general public.
I recommend women keep their money at a credit union instead of a bank. Shop around for one that has a no fee checking account with unlimited monthly transactions. You won’t be earning interest on a no-fee account like this, but you’re also not being dinged to death on service fees. You can have your paycheck deposited here and then withdraw money, pay bills, write checks, use your debit card to make purchases, and all these transactions won’t cost anything.
Ding-free banking
To learn more about choosing a bank or credit union, click the banner below.
In Canada, if you keep your money at a credit union and get a debit card, you can make withdrawals and deposits at just about every credit union in Canada, even if it’s not the financial institution you deal with. Most credit union debit cards are linked to “The Exchange” (see the symbol on your card and look for it on the ATM) and you won’t pay a service fee if you stick with using credit unions.
If you go to a big bank ATM you’ll be double dinged. $5 or whatever the bank’s service fee is plus whatever service fee your financial institution charges you for using the competitor’s machine.
Ka-ching. Ka-ching.
While you’re shopping around you’ll discover that most big banks offer a no-fee checking account, but the catch is you need a minimum balance of thousands of dollars. If your balance dips below that, you’ll be charged a monthly service fee, say $10 a month. If you use the ATM of another bank, you’ll get dinged a service fee for doing that. You could be spending a lot of money every month on bank service fees.
Takeaway
Do you really want to pay a bank hefty service fees every month just for the privilege of keeping your money there.
Just because your parents had a preferred bank and opened a kid’s saving account for you doesn’t mean you have to keep your money there as an adult. Shop around for the best deal for YOU!
More posts in the Becoming a Financially Savvy Woman series
Part 2: Single Women and Choosing Basic Financial Services
Part 3: Single Women and Investing
Part 4: Single Women and Busting Debt
Published by Cheryl @ The Lifestyle Digs on November 5, 2021.
