So the big new idea from the guys and gals over at the Huffington Post is fantastic: Move your Money. The idea is pretty simple. If the Federal Governement considers big banks institutions too big to fail and we shove tax dollars into them to prop them up and then get laughed in the face by the banks who use our tax dollars as a way to fund their bonuses then it’s time to make the banks smaller by leaving for credit unions and smaller community banks.

This is exactly what we did  almost 3 years ago when we moved from Seattle to Olympia. In Seattle, moving 3 times in 6 years a Bank of America was on every corner and it made sense to go to the bank with the most ATM’s. Here in Olympia I bike to work, live 10 minutes from my workplace in downtown Olympia. Finding a local bank was easy. In fact I started actually using their real-people tellers vs. just the ATM for all my transactions. Friendly faces, who knew my accounts and could do deposits and transfers faster then I could type in my pin number.

I did have to do another bank switch and that can be downside of the small banks. My small bank tried to be big and failed. The FDIC closed it down and sold it to a big bank…. great.

So I made another move. All those bank moves and account moves are painful and complicated, but it works and I hope I found a more stable bank, one that can help me grow my business and my life, one that can be a good business partner and community partner.

Hope I can inspire others to do the same. It’s worth it!!