What do I do with this money?

December 28, 2008 5:46 PM

Where should I put this money, given that I have no local bank?

I have several thousand dollars in cashier's checks and no local bank. My options at this point seem to be either mail them in some way to my bank in another state, open an account here and put them in it, or give them to my boyfriend to deposit and have him write me a check for their value (then mail those checks to my bank). These checks are ultimately intended to be used as part of a downpayment on some property but this probably will not happen for at least a few months. I do totally trust my boyfriend not to steal the money from me so that is not a concern. So, which of these should I do?
If it helps, I'm in New York City, and have never had any problems not having a local bank for the several years I have lived here. If you think I should get a local bank account I am open to suggestions for the least crappy local bank. My current bank is an excellent credit union, which I have no desire to leave.

posted by ch1x0r to work & money (14 comments total)

If you have a credit union, most of them participate in shared branch service, where you can walk into a different participating credit union and access your account, including doing deposits. I've done it to make a large deposit to my small credit union halfway across the country with no problem.
posted by zsazsa at 5:52 PM on December 28, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Unless there's something I'm missing, there's no reason why getting an account at a local bank means you have to leave the other bank -- you can have an account at more than one bank. Especially if you get a free checking/savings account, there's not really a downside that I could see.

I really like HSBC -- they actually have this online savings account that has had a consistently awesome rate for the past few years. You can access them through the regular HSBC ATMs and it's free to do online money transfers, so you can deposit your cashier's checks and transfer them to your credit union if you'd rather have them in there for some reason. You can't access the online savings account through tellers -- it's online or ATMs, so that might be a problem for you. Otherwise, just find any old free checking and make sure that you can transfer money for free.
posted by thebazilist at 6:13 PM on December 28, 2008

Unless there's something I'm missing, there's no reason why getting an account at a local bank means you have to leave the other bank -- you can have an account at more than one bank. Especially if you get a free checking/savings account, there's not really a downside that I could see.

Just the hassle of having yet another account to monitor. I think zsazsa is probably right on about the shared branch service, though, I must have missed that on my credit union's website.
posted by ch1x0r at 6:25 PM on December 28, 2008

The statements my credit union sends out have a deposit slip printed on the back. This is so you can mail in deposits. Pretty handy.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 6:41 PM on December 28, 2008

I've mailed checks to my bank no problem.
posted by k8t at 6:50 PM on December 28, 2008

I've found excellent rates for cd's at a local credit union in the town I'm in right now, and the interest rate is excellent even though so far I've had to withdraw early, once, and activate a new account due to that early w/drawl...still excellent interest, and insured accounts. I, too, am saving for a property purchase and need the money available if a purchase opportunity pops up unexpectedly.
posted by mumstheword at 7:08 PM on December 28, 2008

The 'associated local branch' thing, unless you are with a credit union, is not something that exists any more. For example, I had a WaMu account when I moved back to NYC from Seattle. I was unsure if I was staying in NYC, so I didn't want to go through the hassles, plus I had a business in Washington State that necessitated the account remaining open. Do you know that I could NOT deposit a check in a local WaMu branch? I could deposit into the ATM's no problem, but not the local branches. This caused a lot of problems with large denomination checks for the business as the fact that I deposited them into the ATM and not with a teller (despite the fact that a teller could not accept them), and the bank would insist that it was potential fraud, etc.

I mention this story because it may be relevant given the size of the checks likely as a downpayment on a house. Even the cashier's status of the checks would not make them not suspect.

The NYC thing makes things more complicated, as you have to prove your entire life history in order to get an account.

I would suggest mailing the checks via *Registered* mail. Not express or priority or any of that. Registered mail takes so long because someone has to sign a log book for the item every step of the way and you can insure items for $25k. People used to use registered mail to send jewelry.

As for local nyc banks that don't suck, the answer is none. Seriously. I was with Commerce for many years until there were just too many charges and fees that were improperly issued and I had to fight to get back. I now bank with ING Direct now because the lack of fees and hassle. You can mail them checks, and you can use any ATM inside a Duane Reade or CVS (yes they say Chase or some other bank, but they are also Allpoint ATM's, which is what ING Direct uses).
posted by micawber at 7:35 PM on December 28, 2008

When I was in NYC a couple years ago and had a check to deposit in my Wells Fargo account (no consumer banks in the city...). I called them up and got a special address where account holders can mail checks to be deposited. Worked like a charm.
posted by msbrauer at 2:44 AM on December 29, 2008

My current bank is an excellent credit union, which I have no desire to leave

and which you should contact to find out how to deposit these cheques, instead of relying on well-meaning guesses from friendly strangers.
posted by flabdablet at 3:50 AM on December 29, 2008

People, I think the relevant point here is that these are cashier's checks for very large amounts of money. Personally I would not feel safe just putting these in the mail and hoping for the best. The original poster indicated that s/he knows how to mail checks in to the credit union; obviously that option is not a very good one in this case given the nature of the checks.
posted by Jemstar at 7:32 AM on December 29, 2008

Personally I would not feel safe just putting these in the mail and hoping for the best.

Registered mail, perhaps. If it it's good enough for the Hope Diamond, it's good enough for some valuable cashier's cheques.
posted by kidbritish at 8:03 AM on December 29, 2008

For all the griping some folks have about big, national banks, I don't really see any reason why not to open some kind of account at one, such as BoA (I use this example as it's the one I use and have had the best luck with). You can keep your primary banking with your credit union, but have the ability for now and the future to have a place to make local deposits anywhere, as well as have a national network of free and affiliated ATMs if the need ever arises in the future. Transferring money between the accounts electronically is not terribly difficult at all. Sure, it gives you the hassle of having another account to monitor, but it does have its share of benefits as well — benefits that disappear if you decide to go with just a local bank (which may have better customer service, but you already get that with your primary credit union).

But, if you're not interested in that, any of the your ideas as well as the suggestions above should suffice for now (as long as this is an isolated issue).
posted by General Malaise at 8:23 AM on December 29, 2008

Just the hassle of having yet another account to monitor.

Sounds as if the money would just sit there earning interest until you use it for a deposit so not sure quite how much monitoring that would involve - get statement, file it...

Easiest thing by far would be to mail the cheques to your bank though.
posted by koahiatamadl at 11:54 AM on December 29, 2008

Thanks everyone. The shared branch suggestion was just what I needed, much easier than sending the checks by registered mail. I do know that I can mail checks to my bank, of course, I'm not sure how I would have survived for years away from my bank without that knowledge, I just don't want to put cashier's checks in the standard mail.
posted by ch1x0r at 4:12 PM on December 29, 2008