Banks & Credit Cards, how to consolidate ??

[rkser]

Please take a look & give your opinion on how many & which ones to keep & which ones to show the door ??

We find ourselves with too many banks & too many credit cards & I am going towards another Bank, the Chase Private Client Account (for the $$ bonus).

Here are our Banks & Credit Cards ??

1) Local Brick & Mortar Bank - Including the Safe Deposit Box & the Debit Card for ATM Cash needs .

2) Discover Bank , a High Yield Savings Account, our current Bill & Check Pay & our Emergency Fund

3) Ally Banks for CDs & the Emergency Fund.

4) Fidelity Visa Card 2% seamless cash back, where most of our taxable Investments are, holding Vanguard ETFs & also the Cash Management Account.

5) Amazon (Chase) Credit Card 5% cash back on Amazon(Lazy Shopping from the couch) purchases

6) Pentagon Federal Visa Card for 5% cash back at the Gas pump & also no Foreign Transaction Fee for travel abroad.

What do you think, which ones would you keep?

Thankyou in advance for your help

 

[teej1985]

If you think you have a lot, seeing all of my accounts might give you heart palpitations.

I'm not sure what kind of input you're looking for, it sounds like all your accounts provide value to to you, so why consolidate?

 

[COcheesehead]

We have no bank. We have an Apple Mastercard and a Fidelity Visa. 2% on everything. Apple is 1%-3% depending.
Fidelity for Billpay and short term cash.
We’ve been this way for years. No issues. The only downside is we cannot do cash deposits so all cash we receive is spent.

 

[rkser]

We have no bank. We have an Apple Mastercard and a Fidelity Visa. 2% on everything. Apple is 1%-3% depending.
Fidelity for Billpay and short term cash.
We’ve been this way for years. No issues. The only downside is we cannot do cash deposits so all cash we receive is spent.

Thanks Cheesehead for this & many of your prior insightful posts, do you do CDs from banks or as I remember from your posts is it all individual Bonds & Brokerage CDs at Fidelity ? How about International Travel needs ?

Although these Banks in our case, do seem to serve their function, as the Safety Deposit Box needs etc but I am trying to pare them down some if I can.

 

[COcheesehead]

Thanks Cheesehead for this & many of your prior insightful posts, do you do CDs from banks or as I remember from your posts is it all individual Bonds & Brokerage CDs at Fidelity ? How about International Travel needs ?

Although these Banks in our case, do seem to serve their function, as the Safety Deposit Box needs etc but I am trying to pare them down some if I can.

I buy an occasional CD, but brokered through Fidelity. I use the Fidelity Visa for international. I think all ATMs are transaction fee free, but I pay foreign fees on charges. Not optimal, but OK for now. I may get a card that gives us lounge access at some point.

 

[Badger]

We use a local CU for checking, a small savings account, and a debit card (for travel only).
We use Schwab for Stocks, cash swept from dividends and CDs
We use Vanguard for IRAs and cash swept from RMD.
We have 2 CCs. One we use for most CC purchases and the other is Costco only.

I have been working to make our investments as simple as possible for the day my wife has to fend for herself or when I become less able to make financial decisions.

Cheers!

 

[rk911]

IMO the “rewards” aren’t worth the hassle acquiring them. KISS

- we have 3 CCs. one for everyday use, one for online use and the third in case #1 or #2 sre lost, stolen, hacked, etc.

- we have 3 banks. #1 is primary. all income and bill payments flow thru this bank. #2 is associated with our broketage accout. rarely used as we are ‘buy and hold’. #3 is on-line savings.

 

[Ian S]

I'd consider consolidating #s 2 and 3. I have an online savings account with Marcus but my 24 month period of bonus interest rate through AARP has run out and with money market accounts and CDs available at Fido and Schwab, I will be closing that account.

We have Chase for our day to day banking. DH and I each have our own checking accounts at Chase and a joint savings account that pays the major bills - Fidelity CC, Electric, etc.; we just transfer funds from checking to savings as our SS/paycheck get deposited to our individual checking accts. Chase has a bricks and mortar branch nearby and is the only major bank that does. I have a small C.U. account but I really only got it for a bonus a few years back and will be closing that as part of consolidation this year.

Most everything is purchased with the Fido 2% cc although I buy gas with a 3% BofA CC.

 

[Midpack]

I'm not sure what I'd suggest other do you need that many CCs? But we've always thought less is more (hacking-privacy exposure). We have:

• Brick-n-mortar bank for (auto)bill pay, checks (required occasionally), est taxes, debit card and ATMs mostly. And I assume that's where SS will deposit when we start?
• Discover because it's been a decent cash back card - but we don't chase the last %, we've had this CC for a LONG time
• Brokerage acct

And we were perfectly happy with only those three until:

• Visa only because it's required for Costco members (though it is nice to know we have a backup CC if ever needed)
• Online bank for liquid cash/emergency fund (and we only opened this when brokerage MMF interest went to essentially nothing...)

I could see brick-n-mortar banks going away or at least getting much scarcer - but not anytime soon.

 

[pacergal]

OP--why are you wanting to consolidate? It looks like you receive a benefit from these. If anything, #2 and #3 could consolidate.

 

[CardsFan]

I don't see a problem with what OP has.

3 credit cards is the minimum I would want. If one gets compromised you still one and a back-up. As others have said you could consolidate the on-line banks, but there is some benefit in having available money in several accounts in case one has an access problem when you need to access money right way.

FWIW, between DW and I we probably have 8 or 9 unique CC's. We have always maintained separate cards (With a few exceptions). In reality, only 2-3 get regular use

Along with that we have:

1 B&M bank (all out going money passes through here)
1 B&M Credit Union (Local)
1 On-line bank (Capital One), and
1 On-line Credit Union (NFCU)

The 2 credit unions are there because they offered good CD's, but currently all CD's are at our brokerage, so there is only nominal money there to keep the accounts open for future use.

 

[PatrickA5]

I'd consider consolidating #s 2 and 3. I have an online savings account with Marcus but my 24 month period of bonus interest rate through AARP has run out and with money market accounts and CDs available at Fido and Schwab, I will be closing that account.

We have Chase for our day to day banking. DH and I each have our own checking accounts at Chase and a joint savings account that pays the major bills - Fidelity CC, Electric, etc.; we just transfer funds from checking to savings as our SS/paycheck get deposited to our individual checking accts. Chase has a bricks and mortar branch nearby and is the only major bank that does. I have a small C.U. account but I really only got it for a bonus a few years back and will be closing that as part of consolidation this year.

Most everything is purchased with the Fido 2% cc although I buy gas with a 3% BofA CC.

Very similar here.

Chase (and JPMorgan self-directed brokerage). All normal banking done through Chase. Three credit cards through Chase. Everything shows up on one screen.

Fidelity - 100% of retirement money. Also 2% Elan card.

So, with the exception of a CapOne Walmart credit card (which I might get rid of), we're down to 2 financial institutions. We were way more than that just a year or two ago. Love the simplicity!

 

[rkser]

I wish the neighborhood Chase Bank with the Chase Private Client account had a Safety Deposit Box for DW’s use,
so now I have to keep my trusted old Brick & Mortar Bank which has the Deposit Box. Ugh… 2 physical banks within a block distance.

Maybe after the required 3 months or whatever the time is for the bonus of $5k then quietly I close the Chase Bank account.

I do like the No Penalty CD from Ally Bank for HYSA so the Discover HYSA will go.

Bring the Check Writing to the local B&M bank,

My plan is to (& will hopefully) end up finally with, after the due bonus money time for CPC is done with -
1) Brick & Motar Bank - with Deposit Box, with Check Writing
2) Ally Bank - HYSA & No penalty CD
3) PenFed Credit Union - VISA - 5% Cash Back for buying Gas & no Foreign transaction charge for the occasional travel abroad
4) Fidelity VISA for 2% cash back, it does charge 1% Foreign transaction fee [emoji107]
5) Amazon VISA for 5% cash back

In Reserve are -
- Fidelity Cash Management Account which comes with our Fidelity Investments account - Many people use this to simplify their banking needs .
I do not know how to fit that in with our needs for Safety Deposit Box, occasional Travel abroad, no penalty CDs etc…
- Accomadate the Chase Bank with CPC Account which I have heard good things about but keeping 2 neighborhood banks will not go towards my goal of simplifying things for us.

Thankyou guys for your feedback & for taking a look into our day to day money requirements & transactions.

Thankyou in advance for any suggestions for simplifying our Bank & CC needs.

 

[LateToFIRE]

About 25 years ago, wife and I gave up all personal credit cards except for:

1) VISA Credit Cards issued by our Primary Bank
2) VISA Debit Cards issued by our Primary Bank
3) AMEX Green (her), Platinum (me, owing to travel perks)
4) Brokerage VISA Debit Card

We pay them off each month, so rates don't matter. We do accumulate tons of reward points on both VISA and AMEX that we use towards travel.

The simplification helps us spot fraud, which we have been hit by a couple times - everyone will at some point. The consumer laws are such that you must catch it very quickly in order for the bank/CC co's to be liable.

 

[FiveDriver]

Since you asked, I'll tell you that we have 3 main Credit Cards and 1 local Bank.

We have the CitiCard Custom Cash with 5% Cash Back. We use it only for Groceries, for easy tracking of monthly spend. Tap and Go at all our grocery stores. I've been with CitiBank since 1990 so this helps keep up the FICO score.

We have Capital One Savor Card with 3% Cash Back. We use this for all Restaurants, and for Tickets to Concerts, Sports and Museum visits. Easy to track monthly spend. We charge gasoline on this too, but both our cars sip gas....so no big deal.

We have the Fidelity Card for 'Everything Else'. Fido sweeps the 2% automatically into our Cash Management Acct.

I pay all of these cards online each month. Haven't paid Credit Card Interest since Reagan's First Term. Cash sll Rewards each year around Christmas, this pays for the whole Holiday.

We use the local TD Bank for Direct Deposit of Pension and Social Security. Their Senior Checking Account is free of charge.

Keeping it Simple.