My friend told me that he loves his credit union, since his banker does his bank reconciliation for him. That's terrific. A shout out to Mallory Thrush at
Oregon First Community Credit Union for helping the guys stay on track with their bookkeeping.
My experience with a local credit union, BECU, was not so good. I wanted to buy a car with financing, so I lined up some loans. BECU came in at 4.5%, as did Key Bank, and another place came in at 5%. I chose BECU, since it was a credit union. They would only qualify the loan for 30 days, and it took me 4 months to find a car, so I had to re-qualify over and over again. I was at the auto dealers, closing the loan, only it came in at 5%. I was stunned, since weeks before I had gotten a qualifying letter stating 4.5%. BECU said my credit score had gone lower in the last couple of weeks. I think my credit score went lower because they pulled my score so many times. The .05% difference will cost me $1200 over the life of the loan.
Overall, credit unions are the better bet, since they aren't for profit. More money stays in the bank, so they can offer more and better loans. But in this one case, it didn't work out better for me.
Lots of small business owners will overpay this year, because the first familiar B&O Small Business Credit page has the old credits. The new better credits are on the 2nd and 3rd pages, Table 2.
My plan on how you can "Make Peace with your Finances" is to understand a few spiritual laws of money. One is that money is currency, it flows, so if you want to hold onto it you need a container--an accounting system.
Radically Simple Accounting has been used as a textbook for awhile. Recently, it's been picked up at the university level. And not just any University, but Northeastern University in Boston, MA. Believe it or not, that is the university I attended for my freshman & sophomore year. I was an older student, turned 21 in the dorm, so I was more motivated than my classmates, studied hard, and became valedictorian my sophomore year. And now they're the first university to use my book as a textbook. It's a small world!
