It’s been six months since we opened our Capital One 360 account. I wanted to give you a little review of what I think of it. Okay. We’re going to go with pros and cons and before I get started, there’s going to be a referral link down in the description box. If you want to click on that link to go ahead and open a Capital One 360 account, you get a bonus.
I get a bonus, everybody’s happy, it’s like 25 bucks for you and I will warn you that it does take about a month to kick in. You have to open the account and put in a certain amount of money to start. Usually, you would reach that limit by kicking off your sinking fund account, it’s a win-win for everybody. So go and check that out and sign up.
I cannot recommend having it enough, so let’s go with the pros. There are no fees to open and maintain this account, there is no minimum. So if you wipe out your whole account, you can have it. This is probably my favorite, you have one like blanket account.
But you can divvy it up into smaller accounts up to 25, and you can name each one of those individual accounts. We have our medical thinking fund, our car repair replace fund, our emergency trip to Columbia fund. We also have several others, but we also keep our emergency fund there.
Some people don’t keep their emergency fund in there, because it takes a couple of days to transfer from one bank to another. But I’ve discovered a workaround with our emergency funds, you want emergency access to your emergency fund immediately.
Obviously, it’s an emergency. What we have done is that we opened up a checking account with Capital One 360 as well. So if we have an emergency, I transfer the emergency fund or whatever fund I need money from to that checking account. I have a debit card to use, which is immediate. It happens instantaneously.
I can access that money. There are ATMs everywhere associated that are free, which don’t cost any money to use. So we haven’t ever needed our emergency fund. If we do, I either have that debit card I can use to pay for it or I can go and take out cash. So it’s always an option, it’s got a decent interest rate for a savings account. It’s like it’s right under 1%.
I think it’s like point 7.5 percent, that’s pretty awesome. Considering my federal interest rate is like 0.3 or 0.2, I don’t even remember. It’s bad, but the interest rate on the Capital One 360 account is pretty awesome. So while we don’t have enough money to earn anything, if we ever do have lots of money in there, like we’re saving for a big trip.
Obviously not while we’re on baby step 2, but if we go that route and have less money in there for some reason, we’ll get a decent amount of money, that’s awesome. Considering it’s your emergency fund, you’re not twisted earn money on your emergency phone. The app allows you to scan your checks.
If you get checks for any reason, you can scan them in on the app and it directly deposits into whatever account you tell it to and that’s convenient. But honestly, I think all banks do that. So they do all the banks. But it’s a good selling point.
Another Pro is that you think funds sinking funds are awesome. You have cash to fall back on, not really buy the Capital One 360. But I use any opportunity I can to push sinking funds. because for years, we did not have thinking funds and I have never felt such peace of mind.
Then since we opened the sinking, but what you’re waiting for. Let’s get into the cons, there are no branches. It is ATM only for me, that’s not such a big issue because even at my bank that I go to the branch, I only use ATM. I have no desire to go in there and wait in line because everybody in the bank is always grumpy, because they have to go and get money, so I would rather go up to the ATM and pull out my cash.
Secondly, it can take seven days for money to transfer from the account. The account can be a problem. But it’s a little bit scary when the money disappears from one account and does not show up in the other one for a couple of days, which is a little annoying.
It took me a couple of months to get used to that. First month was a little bit of a disaster. When I open the accounts, it showed up before it had disappeared out of the other account. So it was part of the reason that I had the Christmas debacle of last year, because we opened it up at Christmas time last year.
So the last con is that if you don’t do your transactions properly, you will get slammed with a fee and I think the fee is around three dollars. I was well warned about this, so it never happened to me. You hear my dog, he’s going insane out there, basically what you have to do is that you absolutely 100% have to make sure that you initiate the transaction from Capital One 360.
Fortunately, my other banks don’t charge me for those kind of transactions. If I were to transfer money from my Navy Federal account to Capital One 360, I did it from the Navy Federal website, which I can easily do, it will cost me $3. If I log on to Capital One 360 and initiate it there for them to go into my other bank and withdraw, it doesn’t cost me anything.
I don’t understand the logic, but that’s what it is. So I remember that if I need to transfer money, I have it set up every month. On a particular day of the month, all of my sinking fund accounts get filled. So it goes into my regular accounts, pulls the money out and we’re good to go for that month.
I mentioned that you need sinking funds because it will change your life, it will create such a sense of peace for you. When we had the tax debacle of this year and we owed $2,500, there was that money there. Unfortunately, I didn’t have to work it out differently. I could have pulled all $2,500 from that thinking on those thinking funds and I wouldn’t have to use overdraft.
I wouldn’t use a credit card, we don’t even have credit cards anymore. But I wouldn’t take out a bank loan. So I cannot emphasize enough how much I love having Capital One 360 for my sinking funds and the best part about it is that it’s not attached to my main bank accounts.
All of our money goes in and out of those two banks in various accounts. Because it’s not attached. I forget it’s just accumulating. I’ll think of it and today because I’m filming this. I’ll check it out. It’s nice to go in and see how much money we have in there.
I want to take money out of there, so I can have it for an emergency or when I really need it. So I don’t even think about it unless I absolutely need it. So use the referral link down below, I guarantee you will not regret it.
The last con is the last cotton bill, such barking dog. If you are new to my channel. We talk about my family finance and family time. So make sure you click on my big laughing face and subscribe to my channel, and I’ll see you in the next one.