Bank of America

Bank of America should rename itself Branches in the States of America. I recently moved to California. When I went into this Bank of America, they told me that I should close my BofA account from my previous state and open a new California BofA account because accounts in different states are different and separate. Huh??? What’s the point of having a national bank then?
Anyways, while they were trying to convince me to open a new account with them (and I could keep my old BofA account in my old state), the woman was all about the «Keep the Change’» program.
OK, here’s where I get Math-​a-​licious.
or
«Why a Brokerage Account is Better than BofA’s Keep the Change Program»
or
(stuff I thought about while the bank officer kept talking to me and wouldn’t let me get away)
Say I have $ 10,000. A brokerage account has consistently higher interest yields than BofA by ~1%. So that’s $ 100 extra per year. Now with the BofA program, every time you use your debit card, they match the «change» for every transaction for the first 3 months, and then 5% of your change after that.
The question is – is this a good deal? Can I be given a lot of money this way?
Now say for the first 3 months I use my debit card every day. On average, my change will be 50 cents /​day (because, for example, sometimes the bill will end in 25 cents, and other days it will end in 75 cents — it ends up averaging out to 50 cents matched per transaction).
If BofA gives me 50 cents per transaction for 3 months (that’s a lot of spending, BTW), that ends up being $ 45 (90 days * 50 cents /​day).
So I’m still up with my brokerage firm by $ 55.
What about the rest of the year? Well, now instead of matching 100%, they will match 5% of the «change». So if on average the debit charge comes out at 50 cents, they’ll give me 5% of that — that’s 2.5 cents per debit card transaction. So for the rest of the 9 months, I’ll get $ 6.75 from BofA (270 days * 2.5 cents /​day).
That brings ups to a grand total of $ 52 extra for the *first* year (goes down to a pittance after that).
Meanwhile, I will consistently get $ 100 extra from my brokerage every single year.
****So I will get DOUBLE the money if I keep my $ in a brokerage firm!!****
So all my ranting and raving is to say: the Keep the Change program at BofA isn’t all that, and although the woman was very nice at this branch, let’s be realistic.