App O’Rama Update September 27
Bank of America put a couple of holds on the deposits from the balance transfers. The first one expired on Friday so I put that money ($4,850.00) towards my HELOC. This payment dropped the balance of the HELOC to $259.34. On Tuesday the other hold from Bank of America (BOA) expired so I initiated a bill payment for the payoff amount of $262.92. Do not ask me how the payoff is $3.58 higher than balance. This number came from Viewpoint (holder of my HELOC). I will not be surprised if my HELOC has a negative balance when the payment posts. Viewpoint is really goofy when they charge interest. I then initiated a transfer from BOA to Fidelity using ACH. I managed not to double check that I enough in BOA which create a minor incident for me today. Before work, I checked my balance on BOA. There was a hold against the transferred amount for Fidelity. The bill payment to Viewpoint is scheduled for tonight. I noticed that the available balance was less than amount of the pending bill payment. I did get to use a new service from Randolph-Brooks (my main checking account) to correct this situation.
Randolph-Brooks is located in Universal City so their location can create some problems when I need to get cash or deposit cash. That is why I have a checking account with BOA so I can have access to local ATM’s and branches. With direct deposit and online banking, I usually do not have any trouble using an out of town bank, but today I needed to withdrawal cash from Randolph-Brooks and deposit it in BOA so that bill payment did not bounce. I have never bounced anything from checking account before, and I was not about to start. Randolph-Brooks recently joined this Credit Union Co-op so you can use the other members ATM’s without service fees. I absolutely hate paying fees to use ATM’s, actually all bank fees for that matter. Fortunately the ATM’s in most of the 7-11’s around Dallas are in the co-op so I ran out this morning and got some cash from Randolph-Brooks and then deposited at BOA. I am now covered. If Randolph-Brooks was not in the co-op I would have been forced to pay an out of network fee for the cash withdrawal. It would have been worth it since that would have been a lot cheaper than the NSF fee BOA would have charged.
After the bill payment posts tonight, the HELOC will be zero. I will $10,237.08 earning interest that I borrowed for zero percent. The total amount borrowed was $15,300 so I still have $5,062.92 in debt from the HELOC which is now at zero percent interest vs. 8.25%. The zero percent term lasts for a year so I should have that more than paid off and them some by then. The great thing I will earning interest on my loan “payments” during the next 11 ½ months.