Money and other anxieties.
Mar. 9th, 2013 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
agoodwinsmithSo, when I went back to school to finish my BA, I took out a Canada student loan. It was my second student loan, but I had paid back all of my first student loan, so I was permitted a second one. My first one was with Scotia Bank, and I paid it back when interest rates were highest, and I felt so unloved by my Scotia bank that I went to another bank to deal with my day to day stuff, and closed the account once the student loan was paid off. Cue seven years later, and I am taking out my second student loan at my day to day bank, the Royal Bank of Canada.
In those dark days, for both banks, the gov't gave me a document, I took it to my bank, signed it, and the bank put the money in my accounts. Once it was time to pay off the loan, my bank was my loan holder. The thing about those loans was that, if the bank could get the student to default on the payments, up to and including the last payment, they could get the whole amount of the loan from the gov't of Canada, immediately. So guess how much interest they had in helping students during that tricky time between graduation and the first serious paying job. Yeah.
So, never mind that, cue forward another eleven years, and I have finished the degree and gotten the job (several jobs, but hey) and paid off my student loan (the second one). At that time I am in a small town that doesn't actually have a branch of the Royal Bank, but I get the payments to them. And I am left with about $300.00 in the account, which can sit there until I am ready to deal with it as far as I am concerned. Because the Royal doesn't have a branch in my town, I have opened up an account with another bank, and that is my day to day account.
And then we move and then I change jobs a few times, and all in all, I haven't had the time to get that Royal Bank account sorted out. Every so often, I get a letter stating that my account appears to be dormant, and would I please send the document back indicating that I want my account to be kept open. Okay - the fact that I have money in it should be a clue, I would think, but okay.
Cue February, when I decided I had the time to close the account. Low and behold - they had sometime in the past few years begun to charge me $2.00 service charges for the privelege of letting them use my money for their own money making schemes. And so I close the account and get $125.00 back. Yay Royal Bank.
So, I took the money and started a tax free savings account[1], and in one week my pathetic little pile of money earned me a penny.
Which, you know? Is a lot better than being charged another $2.00 fee.
[1] - it's a Canadian thing
In those dark days, for both banks, the gov't gave me a document, I took it to my bank, signed it, and the bank put the money in my accounts. Once it was time to pay off the loan, my bank was my loan holder. The thing about those loans was that, if the bank could get the student to default on the payments, up to and including the last payment, they could get the whole amount of the loan from the gov't of Canada, immediately. So guess how much interest they had in helping students during that tricky time between graduation and the first serious paying job. Yeah.
So, never mind that, cue forward another eleven years, and I have finished the degree and gotten the job (several jobs, but hey) and paid off my student loan (the second one). At that time I am in a small town that doesn't actually have a branch of the Royal Bank, but I get the payments to them. And I am left with about $300.00 in the account, which can sit there until I am ready to deal with it as far as I am concerned. Because the Royal doesn't have a branch in my town, I have opened up an account with another bank, and that is my day to day account.
And then we move and then I change jobs a few times, and all in all, I haven't had the time to get that Royal Bank account sorted out. Every so often, I get a letter stating that my account appears to be dormant, and would I please send the document back indicating that I want my account to be kept open. Okay - the fact that I have money in it should be a clue, I would think, but okay.
Cue February, when I decided I had the time to close the account. Low and behold - they had sometime in the past few years begun to charge me $2.00 service charges for the privelege of letting them use my money for their own money making schemes. And so I close the account and get $125.00 back. Yay Royal Bank.
So, I took the money and started a tax free savings account[1], and in one week my pathetic little pile of money earned me a penny.
Which, you know? Is a lot better than being charged another $2.00 fee.
[1] - it's a Canadian thing
