Bank Online? Here’s One Move You May Want to Make

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It’s a move that could save you money — and a hassle. 

There’s a reason so many people have moved away from physical banks over the past few years and have begun banking online instead. Often, you’ll get a higher interest rate on your savings with an online bank than with a brick-and-mortar establishment, and the reason is simple.

It costs money to keep a physical place of business running. In addition to hiring staff, there’s rent, electricity, housekeeping, supplies, and all sorts of overhead.

Online banks don’t have those same expenses. As such, they’re often able to pass that savings on to customers — namely, by offering more competitive interest rates for savings accounts as well as CDs.

But if there’s one drawback to banking online, it’s losing out on certain benefits that only a brick-and-mortar bank can give you. With an online bank, for example, you can’t walk in and get access to a safe deposit box or notary service. And you also can’t log into your online bank account and have a wad of cash magically appear in your hands. Rather, you need an ATM for that.

In fact, a lack of ATM access is perhaps the single biggest downside to sticking to an online bank. So if you’ve ditched your physical bank, there’s one important move you may want to make.

Keep some physical cash on hand

You may be in the habit of swiping a credit card or debit card, or using a payment app, for most of your purchases. But you never know when you might encounter a situation where you need actual cash to buy something.

Some small businesses, for example, are cash-only. And if you need to hire a babysitter at the last minute to watch your kids or chip in for a baby shower gift for a neighborhood friend, you may have no choice but to hand over actual bills (assuming your sitter and neighbors don’t use an app like Venmo).

That’s why it pays to keep a decent amount of cash on hand if you bank online. If you don’t have great ATM access, you’ll spare yourself the hassle of having to make a long trip to take out money. You might also spare yourself the fees you’ll be charged for using an ATM that isn’t part of your bank’s network.

Store your cash securely

When you bank online, keeping a few hundred dollars’ worth of cash on hand can be a good idea. But you don’t necessarily want to walk around with all of that money in your wallet.

For one thing, you might be tempted to spend it. And also, if you lose your wallet, there’s a good chance you won’t get that money back.

A better bet is to keep your cash in a home safe, or another secure location, like a drawer in your office that locks. Taking larger cash withdrawals makes sense when you don’t have a convenient network of no-fee ATMs at your disposal. But if you end up wasting or losing that money, it really won’t do you any good.

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