Hit By a Financial Sludge Wave: Part II

Whether I am playing the video games, the trading card game or other RPGs, there comes a time when my naturally formed team needs direction and training.  This usually involves determining my team’s strategy and replacing the pokémon that doesn’t quite fit.  I am currently playing Ultra Sun and I determined that my lycanrock needs to be replaced.  Her low defenses cause her to faint before she does any damage.  Luckily there are many pokémon of different types and species that can fill her position on the team.
 
In Part I, I discussed that in June 2017 a sludge wave hit my financial pokémon team when our rent checks were stolen.  While recovering from the damage, I learned I misunderstood my team’s strategy.  I needed to replace my servine, nicknamed Income, with a Checking pokémon to strengthen my team.  That meant I had to replace my system of different bank accounts made up Income.  Just like the multiples of pokémon, there are also numerous types and species of financial accounts.  This is how I found the ones that worked best for my team.

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My Team at the End of Part I

Strategy and Intent
When I restructure my pokémon teams, I always start by looking at how my team developed, my team’s strategy and my intent for each position on the team.  My Ultra Sun team’s strategy involves building on my opponents’ frustrations with entry hazards, status conditions and altering their attacks effects.  The main intent for lycanrock was to set a trap at the beginning of a battle with stealth rock.  (Stealth rock places levitating stones around the opponent’s team and strikes the pokémon when they enter the battle.)

My financial pokémon team formed naturally, but at one point I acquired double checking, savings, and credit card accounts.  I didn’t really start to grasp my financial strategy until I bred my roggenrola, and nicknamed it Budget.  My strategy I discovered in Part I involves Budget telling my Checking where and how to attack.  The main intent of Checking is to deal most of the damage and to prevent Savings and Credit from entering battle.
 
Establish Likes and Dislikes
I find it important when restructuring my teams to look at which qualities I liked and I disliked.  For my lycanrock, I liked that her rock type balanced out my team’s weaknesses and her move-pool helped cover those weaknesses.  I disliked her low speed and poor defenses.  She could barely get her stealth rocks on the field before being knocked out.
 
I liked Income’s speed and safeguard attack.  By having my checking accounts and rent savings in one bank, money could be quickly moved to where it needed to be.  By keeping my rent and grocery money in designated accounts, it protected it from bills and random spending.  I disliked how vulnerable it was.  My rent money sometimes took damage when it returned to my main checking account, and it didn’t withstand that sludge wave very well.  I also disliked that my food account was a converted online shopping account.  I never learned it’s pin number and it required ten transactions a month to wave the monthly fees.
 
Research Based On Needs & Wants
I must say, I really enjoy the researching part.  I take what I learned from likes and dislikes and start looking at every possible option I can find.  I take my time, keep an open mind, and slowly start narrowing it down my options.  With my pokémon team, I needed something that could resist fire, flying and poison attacks, and I wanted it to withstand enough attacks to set up an entry hazard and attack the following turn.  I started by looking at rock type pokémon and searching for ones with potentially strong defense and special defense stats.
 
For my new checking account system, I knew I needed to have three different accounts and wanted them at three different banks.  My first stop was NerdWallet, my favorite financial institution resource.  I started by looking at checking accounts and searching for ones with benefits that appealed to me.
 
Test It Out
Once I have my top choices, I give them a test run.  With my pokémon team, sometimes I add them to the team and do a few practice battles with them.  As I battle, I check if the issue has cleared up, what new issues arise and if battling is smoother.  I can usually sense improvement within the first couple of battles.  If I don’t, it’s probably not a good fit and I keep looking.  As of today’s post, I haven’t reached physical battles, so it has been only hypothetical so far.
 
It usually takes me four to six months of real-life testing of financial pokémon, so I tested my new accounts hypothetically first.  I practice theoretical battles by calling the banks and having a conversation with a representative about the account I am looking at.  Before I pick up the phone, I think of as many possible scenarios as I can and write down questions to ask them based on those situations.  I also tell them my financial strategy and intent for the account.  This helps them understand where my questions are coming from and they can offer clearer insight into thing I haven't thought of.  Based on our conversations, I check my notes for the same kinds of improvements.  My personal rule is to never open the account during my inquiry call.  I like to let everything sink in first and sleep on it.

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My New Financial Pokémon Team

My Final Decisions
Although I have yet to test my new pokémon for my team, Probopass seems like the best option for my Ultra Sun team.  It can set up stealth rock the first move and should have the defenses to withstand a super-effective attack.
 
I also think Probopass, yes here too, makes the perfect Checking for my financial pokémon team.  It’s three mini-noses are a perfect representation of my three accounts that make it up.  The three accounts being at three different banks has decreased its speed of money flow, but it’s defense and special defense have sharply increased.  If one mini-nose gets frozen, the other two can keep things moving forward.  It is also uneffected by poison attacks. ;)
 
My main checking is still at Wells Fargo bringing in the income and paying my bills.  Rent savings moved to Ally into a money market account with free checks.  Now each month’s rent check is withdrawn directly out of rent savings and even earns .9% interest.  My food checking moved to Capital One 360 into a checking account with no monthly fee.  I also have a new pin number, and their overdraft policy is great!  If the account doesn’t have the funds, the purchase gets declined and I have to put the ice cream back.
 
Replacing my pokémon certainly took longer than a single day.  Change can take some time and that’s ok.  I find biding time while researching my options is better than making any rash decisions in the heat wave of the moment.  I have been using my new Checking since November and it was worth the wait.  It had a few hiccups in the beginning, but now my team is running smoother and stronger than ever.
 
Let’s chat:  Why do, or don’t, you think your financial pokémon team needs a change?

Further reading:
If You're Paying Fees of Any Kind, Get a New Bank- lifehacker
​Naming Financial Accounts: Would a Rose, By Any Other Name, Smell as Sweet?- The Micawber Principle

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