Tag Archives: online

Banking by Phone [App]

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Almost full-service banking by smart phone.

I’ve been doing 95% my banking online for the past five to eight years. I seldom write any checks and never visit the bank and wait on line for a teller. Instead, I have direct deposit from some of my publishers and use online bill pay (through my bank’s Web site) and online bill paying features in Quicken to make payments. When I receive money by check, I deposit at an ATM. When I need to pay someone with a check — which is more and more seldom these days — I pull out one of the ones leftover from my original check stock, blow the dust off, and write one.

Some Words about Bank of America

I do all of my banking with Bank of America. Before you start bashing them, let me explain why. Our local branch in Wickenburg was, until recently, extraordinarily helpful. We had no trouble opening accounts, getting loans, refinancing our home, getting a home equity line of credit, etc. The staff knew us by name and always helped us immediately with any problems. It just made sense to put everything in one bank.

Since then, Bank of America has done its part to seriously piss me off — as they piss off everyone else they come in contact with. The local branch service completely failed to help us with a very serious problem, actually bringing me to tears in the branch location. I was forced to work with the monster that is Bank of America’s loan department and, although I resolved the situation satisfactorily, I have not been back to the branch since. I also have serious fears that the same problem will arise again and it has forced me to take a completely different approach on my personal finances. But that’s another story.

In general, my banking with Bank of America works pretty well. Between my husband and I, we have many accounts: 3 personal checking, 2 business checking, 2 credit cards, 2 mortgages, 1 home equity line of credit, and a 1 “recreational vehicle” (helicopter) loan. To start moving these accounts to another bank just because Bank of America isn’t what it used to be would be a time-consuming exercise in frustration. I have better ways to spend time frustrating myself.

What I do like about Bank of America’s Web access is that I can access all of my accounts from one login screen. This makes it really easy to manage my accounts. And it works with Quicken for free (although they do charge for QuickBooks access, which is why I don’t use QuickBooks). Even bill pay is free. And checking, as long as I use my debit card at least once a month. So my banking costs are quite low and access is quite convenient. How can I complain?

Point is: please don’t fill up the comments with suggestions on a better bank. I’m not interested in switching.

The Bank of America App

Recently, I downloaded the Bank of America iPhone App. It sat on my phone for at least a few weeks before I decided to give it a try. It has limited functionality, but it does make it relatively easy to check account balances, pay bills (to known payees), and transfer money using the app.

BofA AppThe app is pretty straightforward. You open it and then log in using the same kind of Site Key protection that’s on the Web version of online banking. You then choose from three options:

  • Accounts displays all your accounts and their balances. Clicking an account shows transactions in that account. Clicking a transaction shows transaction details.
  • Bill Pay & E-Bills gives you access to the bill pay feature. You can make a single payment, view (an cancel, but not change) outgoing payments, and view unpaid e-bills (if you have any).
  • Transfer Funds lets you transfer money between your accounts now, schedule a transfer between your accounts for later, or transfer to another person (if you have this feature set up).

Although the app’s limited functionality makes it impossible to use without occasional Web access — for example, you can’t set up a payee in the app; you must do that on the Web site or from within Quicken — it is, in general, quicker to use than the Web site — especially if you suffer from painfully slow Internet connections, as I do at home in Wickenburg. The phone has fewer options, so it takes fewer clicks (or taps) to get to the feature you need. Unfortunately, that feature doesn’t appear immediately. Worse yet, when you go back, there’s no indication that the app is doing anything — some kind of wait cursor or Internet access indicator would really help. But I still think it’s quicker and easier to use than the Web site for the few features it does support.

Point in case: today I paid my mechanic for some work he did on my helicopter. I was able to do this while eating breakfast, without firing up a computer. Launch the app, log in, and get right to the payment page. Enter an amount, send it, confirm it, and I’m done. It took about a minute.

And I can do this from anywhere I have a 3G phone signal. (I have Verizon, so that’s nearly everywhere I go.)

Conclusion

While I’m certain this isn’t the best banking app out there, it is the one that my bank offers, so it’s the only one I’ve experienced. If this is an indication of what’s to come, I’m very glad. The quicker and easier banking tasks are, the less time I have to spend doing them — or dealing with the bank’s staff.

Now that I’ve tried it, I’ll likely be using it more often.

What do you think? Do you use an app for your banking needs? If so, share your experiences in the comments.

Why Shop Online?

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Save money, save time, get what you want.

The best way to explain is with yet another of my long stories. I’ll try to keep it brief.

Our Phoenix condo is a sort of bachelor pad where Mike and our roommate Matt live during the week. I’m also down there on and off at various times of the week. It has five rooms: living room, dining room, kitchen, and two bedrooms. We furnished it simply with a mixture of old and new (mostly Ikea) furniture. We “decorated” it by putting a few enlarged photos on the walls.

It’s passable, but nothing special.

The Blinds

One of the things that always bothered me was the blinds. The apartment has four sliding glass doors that lead out to its two patios. The ones in the living room and master bedroom are triple doors with the middle door that slides. On both doors are off-the-shelf vinyl vertical blinds that don’t fit quite right and look, frankly, like crap.

I’ve been wanting to replace the blinds on these two doors since Mike bought the apartment. This week, I decided to support the local economy by having a local blinds company put them in for us. I used Google Maps to find a company nearby, called, and got an appointment for an in-home consultation today.

The saleswoman arrived on time with her computer and some samples. I was disappointed to learn that the fabric blinds I wanted would be very costly, so I took her advice and went with vinyl blinds. Of course, the colors I wanted weren’t available anymore either, so I had to pick different colors. She measured and did the math. The total was over $1,200, with “free” installation.

For two sets of blinds.

To my credit, I didn’t choke or pass out from sticker shock. Instead, I told her I’d “present” her estimate to my husband.

(Women always have this option if they don’t want to say no immediately. They can pretend their husband has to make the decision and later say that their husband said no.)

BlindsA while later, I got online. I went to SelectBlinds.com, an online seller of all kinds of blinds. I looked at their wide variety of styles and colors. I called their toll-free number and asked a few questions. And then I ordered the fabric blinds I wanted in the colors I wanted. With the 30% off coupon right on their home page, the blinds cost $359 delivered. The only reason it cost that much was because the 108-inch length of the blinds required a $70 shipping surcharge.

I’d saved over $800 by ordering online.

Yes, I know my husband will have to install them. I think he’s up to the task. But even if I did have to hire a handyman, I’m sure it wouldn’t cost $800 to get the blinds installed.

The Photos

Another thing I’ve been wanting to fix up in the condo are the photos. When Mike first bought the place, I bought a bunch of plain black frames with off-white mats at Ikea. I then began filling the frames with enlargements of some of my favorite photos.

Trouble is, the off-white mat looked pretty crappy. It kind of took the steam out of my photo project and, after filling only two frames with 20 x 30 prints, I stopped.

I’d done some research at Aaron Brothers, a local framing shop, and discovered that new mats would cost a small fortune — about three times the price of the prints! I got the same general pricing information at Michaels, another local place that does framing. Suddenly, it seemed that my inexpensive photo framing project would be very costly.

But today, I got online. I went to PictureFrames.com, which can cut mats to any size you like. I had some trouble deciding what color to use — I have absolutely no creative design skills. I knew I wanted all the mats to be the same color, no matter what the print was. I wanted consistency.

I discovered that if I pretended I wanted to order a framed print, I could upload an image, choose a mat, and choose a frame. I could then see how they looked together. Doing this, I decided that a dark gray frame would give me the neutral color I wanted while complementing the photo. (My artist friend, Janet, later confirmed this after I sent he screen shots of the previews.) I was able to preview four photographs with the gray mat/black frame combination.

Preview Frame

Framed PrintOnce I’d decided on a mat color, it was just a matter of entering the measurements for each of the mats I’d need. I ordered a total of eight mats in four different sizes, ranging from outside measurements of only 8 x 11 to 30 x 40.

Before checking out, I poked around the Internet and found a free shipping coupon code for PictureFrames.com. When I applied it, it saved me over $20 in shipping charges. The total cost of the eight mats came to about $100.

Of course, I didn’t have all the prints I wanted, so I also went online to my Zenfolio photo gallery, Flying M Photos, and chose four new prints: two 16×24 and two 8×12. You can see one of them here in the mocked up frame. The total cost of that, with shipping, was under $50.

Zenfolio now offers framing with mats (the mats are new and still very limited); in the future, I’ll likely buy the prints framed and matted to save the bother of doing it myself.

Shopping Done

I expect the prints and mats to arrive within the next week or so. I’ll assemble them and put them up on the walls. With luck, the new blinds will arrive around the same time and Mike will put them up. Together, they’ll give the apartment a more finished look.

I do wish I could have bought these things locally to support the local economy. But should I have spent two or three times what I did — literally hundreds of dollars more? I don’t think so.

What do you think?

Another Example of the Media Screwing Up the Facts

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A brief rant.

One of my Twiiter friends, @Vatsek, tweeted the following to me last night:

Have you seen this? Helicopter crashes at Texas A&M, killing one — CNN News web page

First of all, I do want to make it clear to folks that I don’t normally go out of my way to track down news stories about helicopter crashes — unless they’re local or there’s a chance I might know the pilot. But since @Vatsek tweeted it to me, I figured I’d better check it out to see why he’d flagged it. I found the article on CNN.com, “Helicopter crashes at Texas A&M, killing one.”

It was a brief piece with an overhead view of what looked like a helicopter that someone with a very large foot had stepped on. Included in the text were these sentences:

…The copter, which was heavily damaged, was attempting to take off when it crashed. A rudder apparently failed, the university statement said….

“All of the sudden, he dropped straight back down into the ground,” [a witness said]…

I have two problems with these statements:

  • A standard helicopter does not have a “rudder.” It has a tail rotor, which is controlled with anti-torque pedals. Those pedals resemble rudder pedals on an airplane, but they are not rudder pedals because a helicopter does not have a rudder.
  • If a helicopter’s tail rotor (anti-torque system) failed, the helicopter would not come “straight down.” It would be spinning like crazy. That’s because the tail rotor prevents it from spinning like crazy. If it failed, it would spin. And it’s pretty clear from the photo in the article that the helicopter was not spinning like crazy when it hit the ground.

This is yet another example of the media speculating, with absolutely no knowledge, about the cause of an accident, spreading misinformation among the public. What’s even worse about this is that if they asked any helicopter pilot — even a new student pilot — to fact check their story, they could have gotten it corrected with, at the very least, the proper terminology for the tail rotor/anti-torque system.