OP, for a few years I used SoFi as they had great rates, and kept my brick and mortar banks (Truist and one more) for day-to-day expenses.
I mailed a large check (about $5k) to pay a credit card bill, drawn on SoFi, that was stolen in the mail, and was “check washed” where a different person’s name was in the check!
Well you see where this went: no funds for about Four Months, and the people at SoFi say “don’t call us, we’ll call you”. Their customer service was not very good, to say the least. I learned a few hard lessons, and do my online banking (for large money market short term savings) at Schwab, and also keep the brick and mortar accounts.
For emergencies- I used to live in earthquake country, now I live near DC where a terr*rist strike is not an impossibility, I have cash in a safe enough for a week, all in various denominations.
A week living in a hotel and buying gas and food is all good should a major disruption occur. But beyond that, well we’ll be with everyone else, figuring out how best to manage.
As someone who has read up on surviving the most horrible circumstances (think civil war in Africa) - the important two things are a close network of friends and family you can bet your life with, and second is communication between those individuals and families.
I mailed a large check (about $5k) to pay a credit card bill, drawn on SoFi, that was stolen in the mail, and was “check washed” where a different person’s name was in the check!
Well you see where this went: no funds for about Four Months, and the people at SoFi say “don’t call us, we’ll call you”. Their customer service was not very good, to say the least. I learned a few hard lessons, and do my online banking (for large money market short term savings) at Schwab, and also keep the brick and mortar accounts.
For emergencies- I used to live in earthquake country, now I live near DC where a terr*rist strike is not an impossibility, I have cash in a safe enough for a week, all in various denominations.
A week living in a hotel and buying gas and food is all good should a major disruption occur. But beyond that, well we’ll be with everyone else, figuring out how best to manage.
As someone who has read up on surviving the most horrible circumstances (think civil war in Africa) - the important two things are a close network of friends and family you can bet your life with, and second is communication between those individuals and families.
Statistics: Posted by scooterdog — Sat Mar 15, 2025 5:56 am — Replies 21 — Views 1093