I am happy to say that after almost 4 months of preparations, I finally closed my Bank of America checking and savings accounts. This wasn't a BofA account to begin with. They bought my local community bank a few years ago, and I just rode with it. I liked the convenience of their ATMs being everywhere, and I had bill pay and direct deposit all linked up in there. Just too easy to stay. Move Your Money day and Move Your Money month weren't enough to free me from their grips. It took a new year's resolution to finally make it happen.
I've had a credit union account for awhile, and slowly added billers to the bill pay. Check. Then I had to get my credit union account linked to my other savings accounts for transfers. Check. Then there was direct deposit. That took 3 attempts to get correct, stretched out over 3 semi-monthly pay periods. Check. And I had to learn how to make deposits into the credit union via their network of ATMs, dig out my pin number, and verify deposits were clearing. Check, check check.
And then finally I had to take time off work to get into a Bank of America branch during their ridiculous bank hours. And wait for over 20 minutes for the BofA hospitality person to finally close my account. And he had to send me to a teller to get the remaining cash from my account. And then I got the last handful of dollars back from them. CHECK!!!! Well, actually I got it in cash, but you know what I mean.
The moral to this story, and why I am sharing it is not to make myself look good. No, I consider myself to be pretty pathetic to have left money in BofA for so long with virtually no return at all. I am telling this story for the rest of you... you know who you are. You wanted to move your money in November, but it was just too complex to deal with before the holidays. You have many legitimate reasons why you haven't done it yet. It's a drag. It breaks your routine. Its confusing. You don't know what credit union or bank to move to. It causes conflict with your spouse. Etc. etc. etc.
But please, no more excuses. You believe your money would do better for your community in a credit union or local bank, and you're right. You know you don't want the mega-banks to have access to your money or use it to leverage even more money for getting bigger. And you want to do your part to make them not quite so big.
So do it. Make a resolution that you WILL get that old account finally closed. You will get that last merchant added in your new account's bill pay. You will get your paycheck direct deposit updated. You will walk into that Bank of America or Chase or Wells Fargo branch with a smile on your face, and you will leave with your self-respect.