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Simple Bank Is Closing

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Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#501

Post by hestefisk »

sizzle wrote: post #494
iends wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not parent, but my wife and I have been using YNAB for over 5 years, even before they moved to a web app. It’s changed our lives: - We never fight about money because we have already planned for the next month together. - We each get equal amount of no questions asked personal money that the other person cannot criticize how it’s spent. - When we first started using YNAB we realized we were living off credit card flo…

Thank you I will have try this out and go in with a positive mindset that it's a structured and objective system and I can't honestly say where my money is going today which is causing me to spend money frivolously on things I don't really need. Honestly I might just make an Excel spreadsheet and track monthly credit card billing statements and total income/month and net profit after debits (bills, living expenses, e…

I have tried a few of these budgeting applications. Unless you have a large amount of bank accounts in different banks, investments with asset managers etc, it is just as easy to process it in Excel. I just download my monthly bank transactions and import them into an Excel flat file. Each item I tag against an expense hierarchy. Then I run a simple pivot table to compare spend over time. It’s not as fast, but it’s free, very flexible and I’m not bound by predetermined rules.

Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#502

Post by sriku »

> The company struggled to compete as larger banks adopted many of the convenient online banking features Simple helped pioneer.

Is there a general lesson there when a company's USP is UX (alone)? Interested in hearing what startup-ers think about that.

Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#503

Post by BeetleB »

EE84M3i wrote: post #469
BeetleB wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where do you live where grocery stores accept checks? Are you in Europe? I hear it's unusual there. In the US virtually every store will accept a check. There are still stores that will not take any card. And some stores that will take a a debit card but not a credit card. But they'll all pretty much take checks.

I lived in the US for 26 years and never witnessed anyone pay with a check at a grocery store or other similar retail establishment past the mid 2000s. I assumed they were no longer accepted?

Most people will pay with either cash or card because it's more convenient. But I haven't heard of anyone that refused a check, unless it's a rather large transaction and they're concerned a check will bounce. I myself used checks and not cards for a bunch of years.

Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#504

Post by sizzle »

uses wrote: post #16

I've been a Simple customer since launch, and have used it as my primary bank since ING Direct was turned into Capital One. It's mildly depressing to be reminded once again that the dream of startup founders these days isn't to build something, but to sell something... specifically to a bigger company. Which will inevitably delete the thing, once it serves its use. Which is to provide presence in some kind of defensi…

For what it's worth, Chase really stepped their design game up for mobile and responsive web. The weekly money insights report is a great summary of my overall banking activity. Check it out in the app store.

Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#505

Post by sizzle »

ac29 wrote: post #105
noirbot wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My worry with most credit unions is that most of the ones commonly recommended have requirements for who can be a member, or are geographically tied. I'm unlikely to live in the same city for as long as I'd want to keep a bank account, and I'm not military or otherwise. Do you have a good recommendation for a CU that's more generally an option?

FYI: "Credit unions generally follow the principle of "once a member, always a member", which allows a member with a current credit union membership to remain a member even if they would otherwise no longer qualify to be such, such as leaving the company with whom they initially gained membership or moving outside the credit union's defined geographic area." This is certainly true for the credit union I am a member o…

I joined Navy Federal through a friend and am a member for life. Credit union employees are friendly people and put the humanity back into banking compared to Big Bank call center script readers in my experience.

Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#506

Post by sizzle »

hinkley wrote: post #166
pradn wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moreover, credit unions seem to have good relationships with each other. I've never actually even seen a branch of the credit union I've been using for ten years in real life. But, if I need a notarization or to deposit a cheque, I can easily visit a branch of any credit union and they are usually happy to do it for me. I've been hit with fines for my mistakes (transferring money out of the wrong account) but I've ne…

The majority of credit unions share a vendor that handles a lot of their logistics for them. That's one of the reasons why they're so accommodating about certain inter-credit-union transactions. It's a value added service of a shared vendor, who just pushes some numbers around in a database.

Yeah I think they use Fiserv and other major fintech players.

Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#507

Post by bartvk »

mtzet wrote: post #490
drewpc wrote: post #224

I'm a Simple customer and incredibly upset by this decision. For those not familiar with their value add, Simple is essentially "envelope budgeting" built into a banking application. Sure, it's a bank and does bank things. What sets Simple apart is that I can allocate $n/month for an expense and it takes it out of my paycheck and puts it into that expense "envelope". When a charge comes in for that expense, it pulls…

What additional benifit does moving money around provide? From my perspective, there is not much difference between money moving around in the banking system vs moving around on your budget sheet, except the banking system might charge overdraft fees if the accounts are mismanaged. Based on that reasoning I've taken the approach to only have as many bank accounts as I need to utilize their services, and to interact w…

That seems an easy one to me. In your case, you maintain software that provides you a budget sheet. In the case of the OP, the app does that for you.

Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#508

Post by arethuza »

cookiengineer wrote: post #496
mtzet wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What additional benifit does moving money around provide? From my perspective, there is not much difference between money moving around in the banking system vs moving around on your budget sheet, except the banking system might charge overdraft fees if the accounts are mismanaged. Based on that reasoning I've taken the approach to only have as many bank accounts as I need to utilize their services, and to interact w…

Counter-question: Does your operating system have all its files directly placed in "/"? Why not? Human nature of thinking needs a context, therefore it makes sense to provide folders or categories to get an architectural structure into a huge amount of data that needs to be processed. Additionally, if you need to manage a business account; having multiple accounts to balance the differences and to trace money expense…

Having a separate bank account for each logical account sounds like having a separate drive for each folder. Accounting already provides very high levels of organisation (e.g. Chart of Accounts) that don't map directly to bank accounts and a, greatly simplified, version of this would seem to be adequate for personal finances?

Edit: This almost makes me want to write a personal Hyperion Financial Management application...

Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#509

Post by zhte415 »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #499
cookiengineer wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-question: Does your operating system have all its files directly placed in "/"? Why not? Human nature of thinking needs a context, therefore it makes sense to provide folders or categories to get an architectural structure into a huge amount of data that needs to be processed. Additionally, if you need to manage a business account; having multiple accounts to balance the differences and to trace money expense…

>Counter-question: Does your operating system have all its files directly placed in "/"? Why not? Because my files are not fungible. I understand keeping business transactions separate from personal transactions. But creating lots of little pots of money for different personal expenditures makes no sense to me at all.

It makes sense to me. I channel 100 per month for the winter heating bill, no need to think about that, it's automatically there. I channel 500 per month for petty cash, don't dive into the rest, it's automatically there. I channel 200 per month for annual insurances, no need to think about that, it's automatically there. Etc.

It's a personal direct-debit, like using rules on one's email.

Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#510

Post by tlb »

mtzet wrote: post #490
drewpc wrote: post #224

I'm a Simple customer and incredibly upset by this decision. For those not familiar with their value add, Simple is essentially "envelope budgeting" built into a banking application. Sure, it's a bank and does bank things. What sets Simple apart is that I can allocate $n/month for an expense and it takes it out of my paycheck and puts it into that expense "envelope". When a charge comes in for that expense, it pulls…

What additional benifit does moving money around provide? From my perspective, there is not much difference between money moving around in the banking system vs moving around on your budget sheet, except the banking system might charge overdraft fees if the accounts are mismanaged. Based on that reasoning I've taken the approach to only have as many bank accounts as I need to utilize their services, and to interact w…

I've always felt the same, but a few situations have required separate accounts:

- education savings accounts for children. There's some tax advantage to keeping them separate.

- a checking account for a personal assistant to pay bills from, limited to a few months cash

- when living together with separate finances, a household account that you both contribute to with a debit card. Convenient for splitting groceries, home improvement, etc. Otherwise, you have to keep receipts and settle regularly.

- if you're paying tax to 2 countries with a tax treaty, you may have to prove that you've already been taxed on money you're bringing in. It's best if you can do that from an account with only a single source of income, or else it gets complicated.

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