I'd known for a long time I needed to say goodbye to the most abusive, dysfunctional relationship I had, but it was hard. Me and the Bank of America had been together since I was in high school, when they were my friendly neighborhood bank, founded right in my hometown of San Francisco by A. P. Giannini, a guy whose name adorned many San Francisco buildings and institutions when I was growing up.
But those days were long gone, replaced by an ever-expanding corporate behemoth that got drunk every night after work and came home and wrecked the house. Why, oh, why, didn't I leave sooner?
I'll tell you why: It was the damn way I'd let the bank ooze into every corner of my life. All those auto-payments and all those names and billing addresses entered into that computer. The credit card I had closed and was paying off, still thousands of dollars from that day. It seemed so hard.
And then one day around seven months ago, I'd had enough. I went down to my credit union, where I'd had an almost-unused account for two years, and set up the bill payment center and deposited my paycheck. I tried to transfer the credit card, but they thought the balance was too high, so I had to suffer through that.
Today, to celebrate "Move Your Money Day, AKA "Bank Transfer Day," on Nov. 5, I tried one last time. And this time, my CU approved the balance transfer, dropping my interest rate, by the way, from 19.4 to 2.9 percent. I already was paying the "pay this balance off in three years" amount, and I'll keep doing it, but now I'll have it paid off in half the time.
So tomorrow I'll walk into the B of A "banking center" -- they've killed off the word "branch"; I guess it was too warm and reminiscent of "It's a Wonderful Life," every bank's least favorite film -- and close it all. The checking account, the money market account, and the pay off the already-closed credit card.
Move your money. It's a great feeling!