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Simple Bank Is Closing

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Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#541

Post by Bluecobra »

asciimike wrote: post #397
cshift wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mint on the other hand is totally useless. That's hyperbole. Having a bird's eye view of every single account, transaction, investments, net worth, etc. is "totally useless"? No. I use Mint and it works quite well for keeping an eye on your financial life at a glance. I don't need some micro-managey software like YNAB (that I'd have to pay for monthly!) to continually increase my wealth and keep debt in check - her…

> That's hyperbole. Having a bird's eye view of every single account, transaction, investments, net worth, etc. is "totally useless"? No. If you can get it to actually connect to things (I have 2FA on most accounts, and since Mint scrapes the sites and stores passwords in plaintext, it doesn't know how to handle this) and tag everything properly (MCC's vary pretty widely). I think that the promise of Mint is great, b…

I shared your hesitation as well, but I don't think Mint is storing your bank password in cleartext anymore at least for Chase. I just signed up for Mint the other day and did not see anything like this for any of my accounts. For Chase, they specifically use Oauth to grant read access to the account.

For me, my checking account is the only banking account I really care about. So much so that I don't use my debit card for purchases and only use it for ATM. I really don't care if my credit card gets stolen since that's their problem and not money out of my pocket.

Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#542

Post by minton »

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…

For me it’s about a single source of truth. Paycheck comes in, it’s in my Safe-to-spend (i.e., not in a goal). I have a separate goal (virtual envelope) for each monthly bill. As I move the bill amount into that goal, it is removed from my safe-to-spend. I can quickly fill up my goals for all monthly expenses (water, electric, cell, etc) and once done, I know how much is left. I don’t have to worry about importing transactions or ensuring an external system is up-to-date and reconciled.

Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#543

Post by gen220 »

tlb wrote: post #510
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…

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,…

fwiw, I strongly recommend trying out a double-entry ledger tool for keeping track of your finances, if they are indeed this complicated.

Don't do everything at once: start with something simple like your education savings account, and expand from there (the account that you pay into the ESA with, the other accounts that account pays into, etc).

For me, it's a little bit of work each month (~30 minutes, but I've automated a lot of the work), but it buys peace of mind and a very efficient tax season.

Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#544

Post by DamnYuppie »

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…

Outside of rent and automated savings I actually just use good old envelopes for all of my other purchases.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0721TMDCL/

The annoying part is going to the bank once a month to get the cash and then making sure you have the right denominations to easily distribute to each envelope. It took a few months for me to get used to it but my spending went way down.

Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#545

Post by linsomniac »

SecurityLagoon wrote: post #513
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…

The only advantage I can see is for people who don't monitor their expenditure well so their purchases get denied when they try to spend too much on a particular thing. Otherwise, I agree, there are plenty of services and other banks that allow you to categorize transactions so you know how much you are spending on particular things.

Simple turns this on it's head. Instead of looking back at transactions and how much money has already left, this looks forward. I have house and car payments due on the first, utilities due later in the month, kids college accounts, Internet, car registration due once a year, garbage due quarterly, insurance due every 6 months.

I get paid twice a month. The day after I get paid a job at Simple runs that takes a share of all the above expenses from my account, moves those funds into "envelopes", and gives me a main account view of the money I have left over after my expenses are accounted for. So in the middle of the month I have half my rent and car moved off for 2 weeks in the future.

I guess a similar notion would be to just add all these up, or maybe keep a spreadsheet of them, and have it give me a number to transfer into a secondary account every paycheck, and pay bills off of that.

But the Simple expense view is great, I can see what expenses have already come out (because they are empty), which haven't been paid yet (they are fully funded, according to the progress bar), etc...

In fact, their "categorize transactions" I've found to basically be useless. Aside: Part of this is their system, which has never seemed to be able to learn some transactions. Part of it is that you just can't track Amazon spend (is this Home Improvement, Groceries, books, etc...).

Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#546

Post by saiya-jin »

1123581321 wrote: post #527
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a lot of people like to do it that way, otherwise these features wouldn't support an entire new category of fintech startups. For me, this is a mental burden and too much busy work. What's more useful to me is forecasting. If the app knows how much money I'm going to need (e.g for rent, bills, groceries, insurance, etc) and it knows how much I will probably receive by then, it can show me whether I'm on the ri…

In the computer example, someone using the envelope system would decide not to buy the computer if the balance in the appropriate account was short. It’s just a different approach to timing and limiting purchases.

It still sounds a bit weird to me. If I need something, I will buy it unless I don't have cash for it. The concept of buying stuff just because I still have some spare cash in some bucket but I stop once bucket is empty feels so strange to me, some sort of forced self-check on compulsive buyers. If that's the case, I would rather look for solution in the root cause of such behavior rather than symptoms.

Maybe the motivation for some ordinary folks (that don't really need structured accounting, then it might be great) is different than mine. Or if I would be on a really tight budget combined with having to juggle tons of various mandatory expenses (household, kids, whatnot).

Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#547

Post by skrtskrt »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #515
zhte415 wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I know a lot of people like to do it that way, otherwise these features wouldn't support an entire new category of fintech startups. For me, this is a mental burden and too much busy work. What's more useful to me is forecasting. If the app knows how much money I'm going to need (e.g for rent, bills, groceries, insurance, etc) and it knows how much I will probably receive by then, it can show me whether I'm on the ri…

I did my own budgeting in a spreadsheet for awhile, and those big lump purchases were definitely something that's hard to model.

I think it's pretty easy to create a budgeting product for the 90% case but those odd lumpy purchases and split payments are something everyone wants to deal with differently.

For example, my girlfriend and roommates often split purchases by one person buying, and the other person adding an entry on Splitwise.

That Splitwise entry isn't a bank transaction until maybe weeks later when I get a Venmo payment from a roommate covering several Splitwise requests, and for my budget I want to match up the $100 charge at the grocery store with the $50 Splitwise request with the $250 Venmo payment that was only partially for the $50 owed on groceries... not an easy problem to solve in a general way that makes lots of users happy.

Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#548

Post by cshift »

asciimike wrote: post #397
cshift wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mint on the other hand is totally useless. That's hyperbole. Having a bird's eye view of every single account, transaction, investments, net worth, etc. is "totally useless"? No. I use Mint and it works quite well for keeping an eye on your financial life at a glance. I don't need some micro-managey software like YNAB (that I'd have to pay for monthly!) to continually increase my wealth and keep debt in check - her…

> That's hyperbole. Having a bird's eye view of every single account, transaction, investments, net worth, etc. is "totally useless"? No. If you can get it to actually connect to things (I have 2FA on most accounts, and since Mint scrapes the sites and stores passwords in plaintext, it doesn't know how to handle this) and tag everything properly (MCC's vary pretty widely). I think that the promise of Mint is great, b…

> Mint scrapes the sites and stores passwords in plaintext

Incorrect:

> How secure is my login information I store in Mint?

> Your login user name and passwords are stored securely in a separate database using multi-layered hardware and software encryption. We only store the information needed to save you the trouble of updating, syncing or uploading financial information manually.

Ref: https://mint.intuit.com/how-mint-works/security

Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#549

Post by linsomniac »

One of the big things I'm going to miss is: No overdraft fees.

Simple is one of the only banks that doesn't do overdrafts. If you try to use your debit card and have no money, it fails. If you try to send a payment, or a autopay tries to withdraw, and you don't have the money, it fails.

Looking at replacement options, I've kind of honed in on Alliant Credit Union and PNC. PNC was close in the running because of their "virtual wallet" tools years ago when I was last looking, but they really have no presence in my area.

Alliant has a $25 overdraft fee, limited to once a day (IIRC, been looking at a lot of options). PNC has ~$38 fee, limited to 4 times a day.

Now, I don't overdraft often, can't remember the last time. But when I'm moving to a new bank and trying to get everything set up, chances are high and I know getting $150 in overdraft fees is going to piss me right off. And they do offer some protections like free pulling from a backup account or one of their credit cards if you have it before doing a full overdraft.

But almost $40 for an overdraft makes me question the personality of this bank.

Re: Simple Bank Is Closing

#550

Post by cshift »

robotresearcher wrote: post #439
cshift wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mint on the other hand is totally useless. That's hyperbole. Having a bird's eye view of every single account, transaction, investments, net worth, etc. is "totally useless"? No. I use Mint and it works quite well for keeping an eye on your financial life at a glance. I don't need some micro-managey software like YNAB (that I'd have to pay for monthly!) to continually increase my wealth and keep debt in check - her…

> There's no real "need" to budget You just described your ... budget.

I'd refer to it as more of a "set-it-and-forget-it automated financial framework". I'm not, for example, pondering how much I'm spending on groceries, frantically updating YNAB with those transactions. Everything's sorted and just keeps working for me.
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