I am lucky I have navy credit union. I got 3.0% ira cd for 18 months. Before switching over my old 401k ira I thought about moving it to alliant but i guess went with the best choice. also have state department . if you have over $2000 in checking you get .60%. Though I do have prepaid card with mangomoney.com and gt 6% on savings with them.
mcbelisle said: I am lucky I have navy credit union. I got 3.0% ira cd for 18 months. Before switching over my old 401k ira I thought about moving it to alliant but i guess went with the best choice. also have state department . if you have over $2000 in checking you get .60%. Though I do have prepaid card with mangomoney.com and gt 6% on savings with them.
It doesn't matter where you keep your money, its not going to earn a very high return for an extended period of time in this environment. A restaurant near me has started offering 10% discount for cash payments. A grocery store has been offer 5% discount for cash payments (and they double that for seniors). Today, and moving forward for some time, cash will reign supreme.
TheWalL said: mcbelisle said: I am lucky I have navy credit union. I got 3.0% ira cd for 18 months. Before switching over my old 401k ira I thought about moving it to alliant but i guess went with the best choice. also have state department . if you have over $2000 in checking you get .60%. Though I do have prepaid card with mangomoney.com and gt 6% on savings with them.
It doesn't matter where you keep your money, its not going to earn a very high return for an extended period of time in this environment. A restaurant near me has started offering 10% discount for cash payments. A grocery store has been offer 5% discount for cash payments (and they double that for seniors). Today, and moving forward for some time, cash will reign supreme.
Interesting. The discount would have to be 6% or greater to get me to pay cash. CC rewards, chargeback protection, hassle of carrying around cash, etc. For 10% I would pay cash every time. Hell, put an ATM by the front door and my brokerage will pay your ATM fees too.
tajar96 said: 10% discount, I am in. Will have to get used to keeping manual track of expenses, but anything for saving money. That's why we are all FWF'ers
10% cash discount now and a slow rise of prices until they're inflated enough to offset it. I guess you could just shop somewhere else then.
I am going to be doing a performance comparison between alliant and USAA - Does anyone that has or currently use both have feedback in regards to service or product differences
batman0023 said: I am going to be doing a performance comparison between alliant and USAA - Does anyone that has or currently use both have feedback in regards to service or product differences
The biggest thing I can think of is that Alliant will let anyone use mobile deposit if you meet the credit qualifications. Also, does USAA give interest on checking accounts? Alliant does, but I don't see an analogous product at USAA. USAA will only let you use mobile deposit if you have their car insurance and if you meet credit qualifications. The reason is that USAA only lets service members and certain family members get car insurance, and you must meet that qualification to get their full product line. The car insurance is an additional benefit of USAA, regardless of whether you bank with them, because it's supposed to be quite good and well-priced.
Thanks for the feedback. That is some good points in regards to usaa. I am full member there but i find myself seeing the changes they have made over the years wondering if alliant woud be a better fit. Usaa claims to have a better system in regards to processing times etc.. but my test show something else completely.
Plus I find that mindset at alliant is more focused on savings and helping its members.
Rates at Alliant far exceed USAA rates (for savings/checking/cds)...Years ago, USAA had very good rates on it's savings account...unfortunately, that is no longer true...
Thanks for the feed back craig10x. That was what original brought me to alliant back in 2008. I have never fully switched over to alliant due to flexibility that usaa ui brings to the table with there online banking and mobile app.
It seems like a lot of people (myself included) use the USAA + Alliant combo for their banking. It's a pretty unbeatable combination when you use USAA for checking, billpay, and money manager, and Alliant for savings rates, HSAs, and money transfers. You pretty much get the best of both worlds and I have yet to find a bank that offers everything that Alliant and USAA do put together.
310guy said: Im thinking about moving my HSA simply because I cannot accesss investments myself...hate going through a FA
In order to get the FICA tax discount (unless you're income is too high anyway..), you will want to contribute through payroll into their preferred HSA.
You can probably transfer directly from company HSA to your personal preference. See the HSA FAQ thread for more info. I'm learning more myself.
MADWAD said: In order to get the FICA tax discount (unless you're income is too high anyway..), you will want to contribute through payroll into their preferred HSA.
You can probably transfer directly from company HSA to your personal preference. See the HSA FAQ thread for more info. I'm learning more myself. My employer allows payroll contributions to any HSA account, like a regular direct deposit (with routing number + acct nbr).
Thanks for your feedback DrForce. I thought about doing the same but have come to see USAA turn more into corp bank. They are slowing stepping away from there core values and I am looking at alt credit union to slowing migrate my day to day banking with. Now I will keep my insurance and investments at usaa. Alliant seems to have some of the same values in regards service and product quality. Only big difference to me is the UI in regards to online banking and mobile apps. I have spoke with some of my contacts and there are trying to move forward with innovation and new products types.
Alliant gives out third party checks from their branches. These are called third party share drafts. They also have home equity checks. Call an Alliant branch and see what they have to offer. http://www.alliantcreditunion.org/services/fees/
quizzer, we keep a small account with a local bank, partly for direct access to things like cashier's checks. Our online account has a link to it and a transfer into it is easy. If you haven't done that transfer before, do a test so you can see how long it takes to post. Then I'd clarify with the local bank exactly how long those funds would need to sit in their account to be available for a cashier's check.
You may find that a savings account is the simplest and cheapest to set up for this. Checking accounts often have some requirement for activity to have no maintenance fees.
quizzer25 said: synk said: Alliant doesn't do cashier's checks.
quizzer25 said: Downpayment cashiers check from Alliant branch
I'm planning to buy a home in the near future.
Does Alliant branch (specifically the San Mateo, CA) give cashiers check for the downpayment part?
Whats the best option then?
They will give an official credit union check with certified funds to a third party. Call or send them a secure message for the details. That worked for me when I needed to bring money to closing. Not sure if you can just pick it up at a branch. I know they will mail it to you. I believe there is no fee unless you want them to Fed Ex it to you.
Not sure if anyone else has seen this yet. I went to log in this afternoon, and had to do 2 things: 1. Confirm my username. They are no longer accepting account #s as usernames, so if you are using an account #, you will need to reset.
2. Choose SIX (ugh!) new security questions. Most are the usual stupid stuff ("favorite car!"). They let you select from a drop-down, OR enter a free text answer (with some restrictions listed, like no spaces or special characters).
I was worried that if they were presenting the new questions with drop-down selections (they way they did for the old security questions), that the "write-ins" might stand out like a sore thumb against the list of "known" possible answers.
However, when I logged back in to verify, they are presenting the new questions (at least the one I got) as a free text box, where you need to write in the correct answer. I was only asked one security question to log back in.
At any rate, you might want to take a second to log in and get your new questions all squared away. PITA, but necessary I guess.
Nor me, even though I logged on today with a different IP address (although using the same laptop). But, sometimes they roll these changes out sequentially in batches of customers...
I haven't been asked to do new security questions, but a friend told me he has, so I assume we'll all be asked at some point. He was annoyed because the question options were all either opinions, or some obscure nonsense like "what was your father's first car model?" For the life of me I can't understand why some of these security systems use opinion questions at all. Isn't it possible that you'll have more than one "favorite movie" or "favorite candy bar"? Or that your favorite next year might not be the same as your favorite right now? That nonsense means I have to write down the answers to use as a reference, which makes for reduced security and added inconvenience.
The whole scheme is reduced security, dejanu. For one thing, it's simple arithmetic - the questions are alternatives to a password. Just more points of failure. They can only make security weaker.
For another, the kind of questions you prefer are really easy to guess. Trivial for anyone who actually knows you. But even a stranger can frequently guess a movie title, snack name, city, etc in a few hundred guesses. I have no idea what my father's first car was either, but I bet I could include it in a very short list of options after about ten minutes of research on the likely possibilities.
I use KeePass to store the questions and answers along with the login info. I figure it's just part of the authentication info and can be treated the same. For those places that accept custom answers, you can even generate a random string in KeePass to use as the answer. I remember reading about some member who did that for the mother's maiden name and how strange it was to have to provide a random string of alphabets when he had to give it out over the phone.
I didn't notice anything new while logging in today. However, when I clicked on Security, then Change Security Questions, I got a notice that things will be changing.
Rolling it out slowly makes sense, I guess... surprising, because usually I'm not on the leading edge of these things.
I totally agree with you guys about the stupidity of it, and the annoyance of having six more things that you have to remember/write-down, and the fact that these things seem MORE guessable than normal passwords (i.e. favorite car, favorite superhero, favorite candybar).
I keep meaning to investigate KeePass and haven't gotten to it yet... what I did instead is customize all the answers, and pick things that are only barely related (hopefully enough to remember!)
Example: What is your favorite car? Answer: onethatispaidoff [remember spaces were disallowed]
I appreciate the posts here. I've not had to confront this yet and it's good to be warned in advance. Sometimes I need account access "now" and having to confront something like this can be a PITA.
What concerns me is that Alliant apparently believes this is necessary. I have to ask myself: Are they having issues, are members experiencing losses, on account of the existing system?? Frankly, I think the existing security is darn good . . . but what I think does not matter.
FutureDilemma said: I use KeePass to store the questions and answers along with the login info. I figure it's just part of the authentication info and can be treated the same. For those places that accept custom answers, you can even generate a random string in KeePass to use as the answer. I remember reading about some member who did that for the mother's maiden name and how strange it was to have to provide a random string of alphabets when he had to give it out over the phone.
I didn't notice anything new while logging in today. However, when I clicked on Security, then Change Security Questions, I got a notice that things will be changing.
+1 on a password manager - I use LastPass but it's basically the same idea. Definitely the best way (along with two-factor authentication) to try and stay secure online in this day and age.
guardian44 said: ...What concerns me is that Alliant apparently believes this is necessary. I have to ask myself: Are they having issues, are members experiencing losses, on account of the existing system?? Frankly, I think the existing security is darn good . . . but what I think does not matter.
I wonder the same thing. Also, are these new questions more prone to keyloggers (since you type in a response, rather than mouse-click it.)
Previously, the possible answers (in the drop down box) seemed to be randomly ordered each time, so it wouldn't be possible to say, "oh the answer to this question is always option 3".
Does anybody remember a LONG time ago when ING used to do something similar? You had a passcode that you chose, but the mini number keyboard that you had to click the numbers on to enter it was always randomized, so you never were clicking in the same pattern?
The new questions don't have a response that you can type in - it 's a drop down, just different questions than before. The list is randomized. I had the questions swapped out months ago. I'm surprised they still haven't rolled it out to everyone.
Actually, at the bottom of the drop-down menu you can choose to create your own answer... And yes, I got zapped with the new security step when I logged in this morning.
I was finally asked for new questions today. As others have mentioned, requiring these new questions is not just stupid and annoying, but actually lessens your account's security.
I was actually thinking of moving my money out when their interest rates started to fall well below others, so this might be the extra bit of motivation I need to finally get my money out.
wow these questions are so dumb. There was only 3 questions where I had a definitive answer to. I had to give a BS answer to 3 more and will likely forget if I dont write them down.
Yes, I agree about the new security questions. They are too much trouble. If I can't remember the proper response to a question, I just push the button for a new question. Works out ok. Just wish Alliant would raise their rates and I would leave more money. As it is now, I generally just use Alliant as my ACH for other institutions. Alliant is still the fastest & most reliable ACH mechanism.
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