Thursday, May 19, 2011

Adding South County Boy to my Bank Account...

Since my hubby to be is now issued a daily paycheck through Labor Ready (and not entirely paid in cash like his part time gigs--- which we record and keep tract of to report to the IRS)... he needs a place to deposit those bad boys... especially since he gets them daily and we don't want to loose any of them. The only problem is that he can't get a free checking account because he isn't able to sign up for direct deposit...
 
Which leaves us with three options to cash his checks:

  1. We can pay to cash his checks at places like Walmart, (and be charged a fee per check of about $4.00 or so)... But that would cost us $20 a week.
  2. We can go to a Wells Fargo where the checks were cut from and pay $5 fee per check to cash them... again--- costing us $25 a week since he gets a paycheck everyday (which is basically half a days work).
  3. Or we can add him to my checking account... and he can cash his checks for free. 
Naturally, we are shooting for the latter because we plan to have joint finances when we get married (and just separate fun money) ... in fact I've already added him to my COSTCO AMX card as an authorized user earlier last month to make sure he can get gas when he's out and about and so he has a card in case of an emergency... and yes for you worry warts out there (and i'm glad you are out there!!!), we went over how the card is only used for costco purchases (that are budgeted into our spending) and gas for the cars. 

So, I walked down to BOFA and tried to find out how I could have him added onto my account.. the only problem is that he needs to be able to come with me. Which sounds like a reasonable request from the bank, right?--- well it is...but its a huge problem for us since he works all the M-F hours the bank is open... and I work through their operating hours on Saturday too! ... Banks are closed on Sundays...

Unless he gets off during the week at 5:30pm sharp AND he can make it off the 5 freeway (which is a parking lot) to the Labor Ready center (get his time card for the next day and his paycheck)... AND we can BOTH get to the bank before 6pm--- our best bet is going to try and go on a Saturday. I generally get off work at 1:15 but if I hurry home I might be able to meet my fiance at the Bank of America by the house and try and get there before they close at 2pm. 

Sadly, since I'm working killer hours this week and weekend, the soonest we would be able to do this is actually on the 28th... so his paychecks will just have to sit at home until then.

Good thing we don't NEED the money since we are using it to save up and pay off what he owes to his parents... otherwise we would have to use Walmart and pay $3 to $4 PER Check... and that's just darn EXPENSIVE.  

5 comments:

  1. Why not have him meet you near your office and take care of it at a bank near there? Seems like it would be worth the added gas expense for peace of mind.

    ReplyDelete
  2. In the spirit of being one of those worry-warts that you are glad are out there, I have to ask if you know what will happen if your marriage ends up like 50% of marriages (75% of marriages for people under 25 which I know you're not but just barely) and doesn't last? I'm thinking mostly of your condo and your retirement. I've heard that in California that the ex automatically gets "half". Do you know if that is true?

    ReplyDelete
  3. @anonymous- The nearest bank to my office is actually the one closest to our home because the other one closes at 1pm I believe (unless they changed their hours... which I didn't think of)... so i'll look into it!!! (thanks!)

    For my worry warts that I love: Worst Case Scenarios:

    For the Costco Credit Card: He's an authorized user, so I'd be responsible for the payments if he did anything "stupid" on the card. His purchases show up on my log in screen so I get to see all the activity on both cards. In the event that spending started going crazy, I'd just have to call AMX and have him removed from the account and un-active his card since the account is in my name. Out of financial habit, I look at the card once a week when I check all my other credit card accounts. We haven't had any issues and my fiance brings be all the receipts (just gas so far... and he always calls me to tell me he's filling up too... its cute) since he knows I blog our daily spending.

    For the bank account:
    It's my account at BOFA, not ING Direct that we added him to. It only has $1,000.00 in it and it doesn't allow overdrafts. Essentially its just the account I use to pay the mortgage with and have my paychecks deposited into (and then transfered to ING Direct-- you can't initiate transfers from Bofa to ING, just ING to BOFA.)

    My other bank accounts: He has not nor will not be added to my other financial accounts until we are hitched and the need arises (but he actually doesn't want to. )

    We decided i'd be the money manager for our family. We have a once a month budget meeting to look at the money we have coming in, the things we need to purchases, and our wants. We both decide what to do with the money WE have and then we both Execute the plan. Fun money is always handed out in Cash and we don't have to tell the other what it was used for.

    As for the condo, it's in my name only so its not held in mutual assets (and unless we re-fi it will remain in my name only).

    My pension: if we are married long enough, he will be entitled to a portion of my pension (dunno how long that is).

    ReplyDelete
  4. Why can't he just open his own account to get them cashed?

    ReplyDelete
  5. @Anonymous- He could... but he won't qualify for a free checking account. He'd have to pay monthly fees and since we wouldn't be keeping any real amount of money in there (and since he isn't making much yet since he's minimum wage and hourly) it doesn't make since to get charged $8 a month or so. Yes, its a cheaper alternative then paying money to cash his checks at Walmart or at Wells Fargo where they are issued... but its still throwing money away that we'd like to keep.

    ReplyDelete