This post was sponsored by Chime as part of an Activation for Influence Central. I received complimentary products to facilitate my review.
A few months ago I was celebrating a bachelorette party in Atlanta and offered to put the nightclub bill on my card and have it spit up at the end of the night. Apparently my bank didn’t like that and didn’t think it was really me at 1am popping bottles in a foreign city and just closed off my accounts – meaning my personal AND my business. Being out for a party, I didn’t have a full purse and credit cards on me, and was basically locked out. I had no cash to even get a cab home, nor any way to even get any out of my now frozen accounts. And banks aren’t open at 1am, meaning they basically stranded me, moneyless in an unknown place. Luckily one of my other friends could step up and take care of the bill and pay for my cab home until I could resolve the issue in the morning.
This story could have turned out a lot worse if I had been alone, and at the point I realized I needed to step up my game when it comes to banking. Long gone are the days of my grandma using checks at the grocery store, so why was I still living in the dark ages and putting all my trust into one tiny piece of plastic?
Chime approached me about trying their services and I was immediately interested to have mobile banking. As many of us do, I already handle many of my day-to-day activities from my phone such as ordering groceries, hailing cabs and booking babysitters, so the fact that I could now walk into stores and get instant notifications on my phone was right up my alley.
Here’s why I switched to Chime
- Instant notifications of purchases. So you know if there is any fraud or use of your card other than purchases you made.
- No automatic shut off. I’ll never have to worry about being stranded and penniless again – Chime will alert me directly to my phone of any suspicious activity where I can immediately respond yes or no 24/7 so I am not cut off from my funds.
- When you enroll in Automatic Savings, every time you use your Chime card to pay a bill or make a purchase, they round the transaction amount to the nearest dollar and transfer it from your spending account to your savings account. Then every Friday they pay you a 10% bonus on your round ups for the week. IF YOU USE YOUR CARD TWICE A DAY – ONLY TWICE! – YOU CAN EARN AS MUCH AS $400 BACK A YEAR.
- So Chime sounds new and skeptical to you – I get it. But it’s time to walk away from large corporations that aren’t doing anything to help you save and earn money these days. Chime is backed by Visa, so your Debit card will be accepted at basically any store you can walk into. Or not – it will even work on Square if you want to buy that weird looking hat at at flea market.
- When you bank with Chime, there are no monthly fees or minimums, no overdrafts and ATMs are fee free at 24,000+ locations. You get a Chime Visa® Debit Card, and an FDIC insured Spending Account and Savings Account that can be managed entirely from your smartphone through the iOS or Android app (or on the web at chimecard.com). This makes it great for beginning entrepreneurs because you don’t have to have some insane monthly balance minimum or pay a monthly fee.
Take it from one small business owner to another, this is a great way to earn cash and keep track of your funds all from the one device that you use most – your smart phone. So be smart, and try out a new way of banking with Chime.
