Every so often I get this burning desire to do something, whether it is to buy another doodad on my wishlist, change address on accounts, upgrade plans, or some other crazy and mostly inconsequential things that cross my mind and happen to get stuck there. This week's burr is to look for a financial institution for our common pool accounts.
Nils and I are in the midst of consolidating our finances, and after much debate, we decided to have a common pool for bills and savings, and each have separate accounts for our own money. I started looking around, and Etrade seemed to be the most promising. They offer investing and banking accounts, so you can have all your accounts in one place. But after transferring my money, it took (is taking) sooo looong before it shows up on my account. I did read ahead of time that funds will not be available for withdrawal for 5 days blablabla, but I thought that was only for withdrawing, and I could invest it right away. Ameritrade says the same thing about funds availability but I can buy stocks with the money on the same day or the next day. So what is with this 5-day hold? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the account is new. I don't know. I've been really happy with Ameritrade and would open the common pool account with them, but they don't offer bill pay. That means we will need another common pool account for paying bills.
So here I am, looking for a new place to set up our accounts. After my research, Fidelity seems to be the best option. And now I'm in the process of reading all the fees + fine print, and doing my "Fidelity sucks" research to see how many people out there hates them. Had I done the same thing before opening that account with Etrade, I would've saved myself all this trouble. Next time I will listen more to my instincts. I knew something felt funny when I was opening that account (from the little things I caught in the fine print), but I was too excited at the prospect of being able to see our accounts - savings, checking, investment, IRA - all on one page, so I just plowed ahead.
Etrade 1: Kokes 0
:(
Nils and I are in the midst of consolidating our finances, and after much debate, we decided to have a common pool for bills and savings, and each have separate accounts for our own money. I started looking around, and Etrade seemed to be the most promising. They offer investing and banking accounts, so you can have all your accounts in one place. But after transferring my money, it took (is taking) sooo looong before it shows up on my account. I did read ahead of time that funds will not be available for withdrawal for 5 days blablabla, but I thought that was only for withdrawing, and I could invest it right away. Ameritrade says the same thing about funds availability but I can buy stocks with the money on the same day or the next day. So what is with this 5-day hold? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the account is new. I don't know. I've been really happy with Ameritrade and would open the common pool account with them, but they don't offer bill pay. That means we will need another common pool account for paying bills.
So here I am, looking for a new place to set up our accounts. After my research, Fidelity seems to be the best option. And now I'm in the process of reading all the fees + fine print, and doing my "Fidelity sucks" research to see how many people out there hates them. Had I done the same thing before opening that account with Etrade, I would've saved myself all this trouble. Next time I will listen more to my instincts. I knew something felt funny when I was opening that account (from the little things I caught in the fine print), but I was too excited at the prospect of being able to see our accounts - savings, checking, investment, IRA - all on one page, so I just plowed ahead.
Etrade 1: Kokes 0
:(
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