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Firing my Bank
Dec. 6th, 2009 06:34 pmI've been with Chase since time immemorial simply because they had a branch sort-of near my old apartment. Now, with America in the toilet because of their hard-to-believe levels of greed and compassionlessness, including repossessing a long-time friend's house, I felt it was time to take my money elsewhere. So I moved 80% of my money to Velocity Credit Union. Velocity is local, their checking and online bill-pay are free, and so far their customer service over two phone calls and one branch visit has been excellent. I'll move the rest over once my new debit card arrives. If you're not familiar with the advantages of credit unions over banks, you can find out more here.
I've become increasingly aware of how participating in our monetary system enmeshes me in all kinds of side-effects, intended or otherwise. I can't completely escape it, and probably wouldn't if I could, because there are a lot of benefits, too, but I am consciously making the decision to minimize my participation to only what is necessary and beneficial.
One major epiphany was how addicted I was to the system in general. When I think about things like "Where I will live? What I will eat? How I will get around?", like most people, I tend to ask the question "how much money do I need to do this?" But there *are* ways to do many of these things that *don't* involve money, and once you realize there's *one* thing you can with less or no money, you begin to wonder what *else* you can do without it.
I suddenly have more empathy for people who get really upset because, say, their property taxes go up. Because maybe, in their world, they've already paid off their mortgage, and they actually feel like they *own* their property, and that no one should be able to just kick them out of their home because they don't have $1000 more than they had last year. And really, this kind of world-view is *new* to me. I've been floating along in my "life costs money" head trip for my entire existence, and recognizing that money is, at least on some level, optional, is a total revelation.
I'm sure they're be more on this later.
I've become increasingly aware of how participating in our monetary system enmeshes me in all kinds of side-effects, intended or otherwise. I can't completely escape it, and probably wouldn't if I could, because there are a lot of benefits, too, but I am consciously making the decision to minimize my participation to only what is necessary and beneficial.
One major epiphany was how addicted I was to the system in general. When I think about things like "Where I will live? What I will eat? How I will get around?", like most people, I tend to ask the question "how much money do I need to do this?" But there *are* ways to do many of these things that *don't* involve money, and once you realize there's *one* thing you can with less or no money, you begin to wonder what *else* you can do without it.
I suddenly have more empathy for people who get really upset because, say, their property taxes go up. Because maybe, in their world, they've already paid off their mortgage, and they actually feel like they *own* their property, and that no one should be able to just kick them out of their home because they don't have $1000 more than they had last year. And really, this kind of world-view is *new* to me. I've been floating along in my "life costs money" head trip for my entire existence, and recognizing that money is, at least on some level, optional, is a total revelation.
I'm sure they're be more on this later.
