My mortgage refinance, three months in the making, is finally a done deal.  Nearly 35 autographs, 18 pages initialed by both my wife and I, 3 lbs of paper, and a half hour out of our work day later and the 4.625% rate is a reality.

This cuts our monthly principle and interest by $250 per month, or about $3,000 annually.

Banking, Real Estate mortgage, mortgage rates, refinance

I’ve always been under the impression that USAA was an insurance company, even though I’ve been bombarded with literature that says otherwise.  I hold my car insurance, primary residence insurance, and now even my rental property insurance is held with USAA, as they’ve been the low-cost provider for all of those.

Yesterday though, I noticed a coworker paid his lunch bill with a USAA branded credit card, and further discussion revealed that he does all of his banking with USAA as well.

Naturally, one would question how you deposit a check to a bank with no physical presence.  And why would you want to incur ATM fees while being forced to use a competitors ATM?  And how do they stack up to my existing bank, Bank of America?

Scan your deposits in… from home.

I’ve noticed over the past several years that the only reason I go to Bank of America is to deposit checks, and make the occasional cash withdrawal.  Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I set foot in the bank itself.  So naturally, I had to wonder how one would go about making a deposit to a purely online bank that is more convenient than driving down the street.  The answer lies in my desktop scanner.

With USAA’s Deposit@Home system, you simply log in to your account and scan in the check to be deposited using your own scanner.  The deposit is immediately credited to your account, and you simply void the check after completing the deposit.

Pretty cool if you ask me.

ATM fees are reimbursed.

Assuming a USAA banking customer would have to absorb the ATM fees of a local bank, since USAA doesn’t have a system of their own ATM’s would only be partially correct.  Yes, you’ll incur some ATM fees, but those fees are actually reimbursed by USAA for the first 10 ATM withdrawals per month, up to a total of $15.   So you can use the most convenient ATM without worrying about the $2.00 transaction fee you’re slapped with.

Some other perks?

USAA offers free checks, interest for checking accounts, credit and debit card rewards programs (with no annual fee), free online bill pay, and no monthly service fees.  They also offer a host of savings options, certificate of deposit (CD) options, and some cool banking options for kids (like a prepaid cash card with parental control).

So where’s the drawback?

At this point the only drawback I’ve found is that they don’t have a physical presence, which should be obvious.  But this one drawback does mean that you won’t have access to a safety deposit box with USAA banking.

Currently, we receive a free safety deposit box at Bank of America since we have a number of accounts with them.  Switching to USAA exclusively would eliminate that option, and we’d need to pay for a safety deposit box.

Beyond that, the issue of convenience has been solved.

I’ll investigate further, but I like what I see.

Banking, Saving Bank of America, banking options, bill pay, online banking, savings, USAA

I’d like to say that today’s market response to the Tim Geithner press conference was a surprise, but I can’t.  I’d also like to say that I say it coming, but I can’t.

Geithner revealed few details about what will essentially become federal bailout round two.  The biggest detail he did reveal however was that it was going to cost another $1.5 trillion, spending $500 billion to recapitalize banks and the other trillion to support consumer and business lending.

His words didn’t even make it from his lips to the microphone and the market took a plunge.

I watched gold (GLD: chart, web, Y!) skyrocket while nearly everything else went directly to red.  Didn’t even turn pink first.

So I picked up some GLD at $90 under the notion that inflation will surely rise with the influx of all this money, and equities will suffer accordingly.

To take a page out of the Winston playbook, I’m going long on gold as a hedge against my equities.

If only I could get crude to follow in its golden commodities footsteps.

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Banking, Investing bailout, GLD, gold, Tim Geithner, treasury