Nor did I feel like we needed one.
For the past few years we’ve banked with USAA, who do not have physical locations. Thinking about how you bank, how often do you need to walk into a branch, anyway? My paycheck comes direct deposit. If someone mails me a check, I take a picture of it to deposit it. Bills are paid by credit card, by bill pay, or paper check on the odd occasion. If I need cash, I visit any ATM, and USAA will even reimburse me the $2 or $3 ATM fee.
It’s a decent arrangement, right up until you need cash quickly. For us, that was Thursday before last, when the property manager for the home we’re looking to rent said we were approved and could we bring a cashier’s check tomorrow for the security deposit.
I have the money for the security deposit. I like to stay heavily invested, so there’s usually not a lot of cash sitting around, but I just so happened to have the money in a money market due to a recent stock sale. So even better, right? I’ll just wire them the money, they’ll get it today or tomorrow, and life will be good.
Turns out, the property manager’s bookkeeper wouldn’t accept a wire transfer. Inside I’m saying to myself, “Do… you… know what a wire transfer is?” but out loud I’m saying approximately “Hmm, I well that’s a real pickle.”
So I find out that I need a cash-equivalent $3500 in 3 days. While on the phone, I quickly do the mental math and ask if we can come in on Monday instead of Friday to sign the lease. No problem, he says. Thus Operation Shady Drug Dealer is born.
After the call on Thursday I visit a 7–11 ATM and pull out $400 (the transaction max) from two accounts. Total: $800. In the evening I have a class meet up at the Faultline Brewing Company, so I hit their ATM and pull another $200 per account, so that I’m up to the daily max of $600 per account. Total: ($400 x 2) + ($200 x 2) == $1200. That’s a nice stack of $20’s, and we’re only getting started.
On Friday I had to get another $1200 at some point. This time I went to a Chase ATM at a CVS. It too had a $400 limit, but I realized I could just put my card in again and get the other $200 right then for the $600 per account total. There I am at the front of the CVS looking dodgy as shit pulling out $1200 in cash and cramming it into my pockets before someone can see me. But mission accomplished, and we’re up to $2400 total now.
On Saturday I take the giant stack of 20’s and proceed to count it at the dining room table while dressed in a white T-shirt and boxer-briefs. At least it wasn’t a wife-beater, right? I add $100 we had from selling stuff on Craigslist, bringing the grant total to $2500. I didn’t have rubber bands so I divided it into $500 stacks and put them in sandwich bags, which just seemed right at the time but also seems drug dealer-ish for some reason.
Now I have my 5 sandwich bags of currency but nothing to put them in, so I grab a beat-up old USPS envelope (like this) to shove the money into. Now I’m off to the bank looking like someone mailed me a bunch of 20’s.
I still need another $1000, so I hit up the ATM at the Bank of America. That’s done, so into the bank I go, where they turn my cash into a piece of paper that says Bank of America will pay the property management company $3500. That’s the piece of paper I need to hand-carry across town on Monday. This process is somehow better than me calling Vanguard and telling them, “Hey, can you send this person $3500? Yes, it’s really me.” followed by a minute or two of typing and it’s done.
The fact that the real estate industry is a party to this transaction suddenly makes this story understandable, doesn’t it? The whole thing created a lot more stress than necessary in the electronic age. Regardless, I’ve opened a cheapo BOA checking account, just so we’ll have a local account in case this happens again. Vanguard can wire to BOA, then I can walk into BOA and get my cashier’s check.
Originally published at bbhart.com on October 20, 2013.
