Occupy? No, leave Wall Street

[gridlore]

If you really want to put the fear of Midas into the "too big to fail" financial institutions, start moving money to small local banks and credit unions. Start paying cash, and writing checks. They depend on their millions of customers to support their bloated infrastructures and billions in bonuses. So leave. Do the research. Find a good, solid, local institution and take you business there. The best part is a local bank has local concerns. You money will be used for loans in your community, not to finance some swamp reclamation project in Burma. To really twist the knife, stop using credit cards. Pay off you balances and close accounts. Keep one or two for emergencies, but shut off that flow of revenue.

It's our money, it's our nation, and it is time to tell the 1% that in the only language they understand.

Comments

[kshandra]

http://moveyourmoneyproject.org/find-bankcredit-union

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

I switched to a credit union years ago, after Wells Fargo used up the last of my patience and goodwill by dinging me with multiple overdraft fees (a chain reaction from one transaction pushing all the rest over the line).

I need credit cards to pay for things, but I zero the balance out every month, using them strictly as a form of accepted electronic currency.

[kengr]

Most debit cards work just fine for online transactions. I haven't had a credit card in almost 20 years. I got bitten badly when I lost a job and wasn't able to work.

So now I use cash or debit cards.

[melchar.livejournal.com]

We primarily bank at a credit union, thru which we have credit cards [that we keep at 0].

We have accounts at Bank of the West - but mainly use it for its checking account.

Yup - checks. And no debit cards or auto bill pay. Those are killers. [As in the 'those who know a little about computers start learning how easy they are to corrupt.]

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

I am still with BoA including the merchant account. Got a call the other day from them being proactive customer service-like. Told them my merch fees were too high and I was considering a competitor (They were and I was).

Boom, like that, they cut our rates by 55%.

Fuckers.

[op-tech-glitch.livejournal.com]

I was just posting more or less the same strategy to a few people over on The Book of Face (sans the macro but I can think of a few places there to plop that in plain sight as well).

[freyjaw.livejournal.com]

The car loan is at a credit union. Why? You'll laugh: best credit rate and terms, and they dropped it a touch more for automatic payments. So, our biggest financial transaction is at a credit union locally.

[sharrukin.livejournal.com]

I banked with First Union, but it got eaten by Wachovia, which in turn got eaten by Wells Fargo. And each time the interest on my money got worse and the feels nickel-and-dimed me more.

I'm about to open an account in the credit union where I've been eligible for twenty-five years, and all my money goes there. Wall Street can go howl at the moon.