[HOWTO] Moving money between checking and savings accounts

In this hobby, we tend to rack up a lot of checking and savings accounts, and it can be tedious trying to manage all of them. I wanted to provide a breakdown of the different transfer options available and the pros and cons of each. 1. ACH . This is a direct account to account transfer and is the most common type of transfer since all banks and CUs participate in the ACH network. There are two types of ACH - push and pull. a. ACH push is where you ask your FI to transfer money to another account from your account. b. ACH pull is where you ask your FI to transfer money from another account to your account. The reason there is a distinction here is mostly one of fees. Just about every FI offers ACH pull for free but many actually charge a fee for ACH push. ACH can take anywhere from a number of hours to a few days. This is up to the individual FI since ACH batches can be processed multiple times a day now which means the limitation is purely put in place by the FI. Currently same day ACH is limited to $1MM but most FIs put in much smaller daily/weekly/monthly limits here to protect themselves from fraud. Most of my banks and CUs charge for ACH push so between that and slower posting times than I would like, I only use this option when moving money to and from DCU. Some people open an account with an FI specifically to use to transfer money between accounts, called a hub account, but the banks and CUs don't really like this practice and some will shut your account down for it. 2. Zelle . Zelle is another option that is offered by FIs to facilitate moving money between accounts. It is specifically meant for personal transactions between two people who trust each other but it's not uncommon for people to use it to move money between their own accounts and doing so isn't against the ToS. Since Zelle is specifically designed for person to person transfers, the limits on this can be as low as $500 a day although each participating FI sets their own limits. Zelle is great if you need to send someone money because all Zelle transactions are typically free to the consumer (some shadier banks or CUs may charge a fee for this but it's not the way that the system is meant to be run and I can't think of any that do, just that the Zelle website does mention that they can) and they are usually immediate as long as the transaction isn't held up for fraud review (common on new accounts or people who haven't used Zelle recently) and as long as you're aware that you cannot normally dispute these transactions unless they are explicit fraud committed by someone else accessing your account. Basically, if someone rips you off, and you paid them with Zelle, that money is likely gone with no recourse. Just be mindful of that. I have used Zelle for years and it's my favorite way to move money. You do have to have a unique telephone number or email address for each account in the system which can be a bit of a pain but there are easy ways around this by creating a Gmail account because you can create aliases by adding a + sign or period in the email address. My favorite way is to add a + and a number. So like... take anonymous@gmail.com, for example. If you put in anonymous+1@gmail.com, you just made a new email address as far as most online systems (some won't take + signs, more on that in a sec) are concerned but Gmail will still deliver to the main "anonymous" inbox. If the + sign isn't acceptable by the system, add a period. a.nonymous@gmail.com will also go to the same inbox as will a.n.o.n.y.m.o.u.s and anonym.ous. Google's systems ignore periods in the address so you can put them between any letter(s) you wish. One final trick here, use @googlemail.com instead of gmail.com which will score you another address if periods and + don't work. You can also use Zelle with a bank or CU that doesn't participate in Zelle by downloading the Zelle app and using your debit card but this has to be tied to your mobile number, only supports one card at a time, and has a $500 weekly send limitation. Anyway, in all the time I have used Zelle, I have only had problems with Service CU flagging my transaction as fraud which was resolved with a quick phone call and Navy Federal changed my instant transfer to a delayed one that took a few days when I first started using it. Hasn't been a problem since. Every other time, the transaction has been instant with no issues. I actually pay my rent this way. 3. PayPal . This is another one of my least favorite ways to move money. It's similar to ACH but has a complicated fee structure. You also have to manually request PayPal move the money to the new account and then you're subject to ACH times too. Personally I wouldn't use this method unless someone sends you money on PayPal because they don't have any other way to do it. 4. Wire transfer . Wire transfers are not really used that much domestically these days outside of business transactions involving high dollar amounts because ACH can be just as fast and is much cheaper. Wire transfers are usually used when sending money abroad though since ACH is a domestic network. Fees with wire transfers are higher than most any other option. The one that I did when buying a laptop so I could get a cash discount was $30. As you can imagine, there is no purchase protection here either, make sure you trust the person you're wiring money to. 5. Western Union/Moneygram . These services are like wire transfers. They're expensive but they can be used to send and receive money both domestically and internationally without having deposit accounts. I have used both services before and would not do so again unless I had to. They are very commonly used for illegal transactions and it's not uncommon for them to flag transactions for further review and slow the whole process down, especially if you don't actually do the transaction in person. Avoid unless you have no other choice. 6. Check . You can always just write yourself a check from one bank account and deposit it into the other. I did this before Zelle became a big deal because writing the check was free and my bank charges a whopping $3 for ACH push. As long as you have an established relationship with the bank you deposit the check into, check processing times can be about as fast as ACH. When I used to write checks this way, I usually had access to the money the next day.