Personal Finance Blog
  •  About
  •  Best Posts
  •  Products
  •  Budget
  •  Invest
  •  Books
  •  Minimalism
  •  Help
  •  Contact
Home › Money › Budgeting › Tips and Tricks: How to handle regular banking with an online bank
Money

Tips and Tricks: How to handle regular banking with an online bank

I’ve been with online banks since I was 19 (like President’s Choice (PC) Financial or Tangerine in Canada).

I basically hate paying bank fees, don’t like leaving money as a balance in there just to waive the fees (sometimes I use more than I need and I don’t want to think about that) and have run the gamut in learning how to handle online banking.

1. HOW TO AVOID THE DREADED BOUNCED CHEQUE / NSF FEE

So I am an idiot.

I like to keep zero dollar balances in accounts and I move money all over the place to try and get the best interest rate.

In doing so, sometimes I totally, utterly EFF UP and end up putting in a transfer for MORE than what is available in my account and I get charged a NSF (insufficient funds) fee of $45.

The trick to avoid this is simply to EMAIL THE MONEY TO YOURSELF.

It only costs $1 and you can email however much you need to yourself and deposit it at your other bank account to avoid this fee. It’s instant, super fast, and $1 is way cheaper than $45 especially if you KNOW you don’t have enough and you can see the collision happening.

Example scenario:

$1000 in my PC Financial account

I ask Tangerine to debit $1500 from PC to move into Tangerine

OOPS! I realize I only have $1000 to debit because I had already moved $500 the day before and screwed up.


Enter: Email money transfer $500 to myself, and deposit it into PC

Wait for Tangerine to debit the money which is now $1500

Avoid: $45 NSF charge.

*dusts off hands*

————————–

Use my Tangerine referral ID: 32726976S1 to get $50 and $150 in bonuses

————————–

stock_canada-bills-money-cash-20-2

 

2. HOW TO GET A BANK DRAFT

When I bought my car, it was around $9000. I needed a bank draft / certified cheque or else I couldn’t buy the car, but what’s a girl to do when you have the cash sitting in your online bank account to buy said car, but you can’t get a bank draft from an online bank like Tangerine or PC?

Solution: You have an account at a standard bank like TD Bank, and you have a LINE OF CREDIT you can draw upon (who cares what the interest rate is), and use the money, then pay it off with a cheque from your online bank.

Example scenario:

I have to get a bank draft for $9000.

I go to TD Bank. I get a bank draft for $9000 from my line of credit and pay the $7.50 draft fee.

On the spot, I write a cheque to myself from PC Financial for the entire amount of $9007.50

I deposit that amount into my line of credit.

The debit cancels out the credit, and I end up with a balance of $0.

To icing on the cake is I didn’t pay a SINGLE CENT in interest for using the line of credit, because I paid it off THAT DAY. If I had paid it off the next day, I’d have been charged 8% annual interest on the $9000 (compounded daily).

3. HOW TO GET U.S. DOLLARS

Have a USD account with a standard bank like TD. This is what I do, and I deposit all my USD cheques in there that don’t come via Paypal, and I convert it to CAD or keep it in USD and transfer it to Questrade to buy stocks.

————————–

Use my Questrade referral ID: o0soehds and get $50 in free trades

————————–

Any other tips and tricks to share?

 

Love this? Please help me share it!

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
Banking Offline Online PC Financial Save Money Standard Tangerine Tips Tricks

Post navigation

  • ← October 2014: What I bought, watched and read
  • The Canadian Financial ‘Money Things To Do’ Checklist for Each and Every Year →

Related posts

3 fail safe ways to look expensive and chic

https://www.refinery29.com/older-women-fashion-personal-style

In the world of Save. Spend. Splurge.: 7 Older Women on Personal Style

How do you manage your toddler’s screen time?

8 thoughts on “Tips and Tricks: How to handle regular banking with an online bank”

  1. ArianaAuburn says:
    November 11, 2014 at 5:06 PM

    PC Financial was good to us when we first moved to Canada ($200 CAD daily limit was a challenge though). We were shocked at how RBC and Other banks were charging ridiculous amounts for basic banking services. If we needed cash, we would write a check but had to wait a week or so for it to get cashed (from USD to CAD). It takes two weeks to get a check cashed and converted from CAD into USD when deposited into a US bank account. This turned out to be cheaper than using a regular wire transfer.

    Reply
    • save. spend. splurge. says:
      November 12, 2014 at 8:34 AM

      PC and Tangerine are excellent banks. The rest are crooks.

      Reply
  2. Emily @ Simple Cheap Mom says:
    November 11, 2014 at 1:30 PM

    We were with PC Financial and I lived their everyday services. When we bought our car we ended up maxing both our debit cards out then topping up with everything in our pockets. Not elegant, but it got us our car. We’re with TD now, but we’re thinking of changing once our mortgage is paid.

    Reply
    • save. spend. splurge. says:
      November 12, 2014 at 8:34 AM

      TD is a good professional general bank but their fees are stupid.

      Reply
      • Emily @ Simple Cheap Mom says:
        November 12, 2014 at 2:17 PM

        @save. spend. splurge.:

        We don’t pay any banking fees, or an annual fee for our credit card, but we need to leave a not insignificant balance in our account. When the mortgage is done we’ll definitely be shopping around.

        Reply
        • save. spend. splurge. says:
          November 13, 2014 at 10:29 AM

          Ahhhh. I hate balance fees too. I’m so used to leaving $0…

          Reply
  3. Kassandra says:
    November 11, 2014 at 9:26 AM

    Looks like you and I bank with TD for much the same reasons lol. Like you, I earn income in both currencies so I’m a frequent user of their cross-border services.

    Reply
    • save. spend. splurge. says:
      November 11, 2014 at 11:29 AM

      Oh yeah 🙂

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes:

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

Stay in Touch!

Products by Sherry

Ebates.ca

In a nutshell…

Save. Spend. Splurge.
[ wealth. style. minimalism. ]
WHO: sherry at savespendsplurge.com
MOST DEBT: cleared $60K in 18 months
FAVOURITE DAY: payday
HATES: being late & lazy people
EATS: pho, fried chicken, sashimi
DRINKS: homemade matcha lattes
SLEEPS: on a 100% authentic cotton Japanese futon
SHOPS: Style & closet for sale here
READS: All my book recommendations.
BEAUTY: raves about Paula's Choice
WEBHOSTS WITH: BlueHost
...but you can read more about me here, read my best posts here, or get in touch with me here, and of course, Ask me anything here

Keep up to date with me!

Reading Matter

Money
Style
Minimalism
Career
Life
Travel

3CouponCode.com
Latest Coupons
  • Amazon
  • 6pm
  • Kohls
  • 1800PetMeds
  • Backcountry
  • Harry and David
  • Voucherish

SUBSCRIBE

Be the first one to find out when we have new content posted!

Stay in Touch

Site: Privacy Policy

The Budgeting Tool

About Me

I am a wealth-obsessed, style-focused, minimalist.

I got out of $60,000 of debt in 18 months with The Budgeting Tool which I now sell online and donate its net proceeds to charity, along with The Investing Tool.

I've also authored two books: Start a Blog Like a Boss - Making $1000 USD a month & Invest your Money Like a Boss - In 4 Hours a Year.

I earn like a princess when I work but am trying hard to live like a duchess instead by not spending all of it.

The rest of the time I relax and enjoy the time off by traveling, although traveling has been on hold lately with the arrival of Little Bun, my rambunctious, ever-hungry little boy.

Welcome.

©2019 Save. Spend. Splurge.. All rights reserved.
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.