Got kind of a funny surprise today as I tried to deposit some money into the savings account and for some reason the ATM wouldn’t allow me to do so. After speaking with a live teller apparently my debit card was no longer active as a new one had been issued. Of course, I never even received it to my knowledge.

So, this makes me believe that the mail got sent somewhere else by accident or that someone took the mail. Was kind of funny I thought that the bank wouldn’t notify you that your card will be replaced. You’d think I would get at least two mailings like a credit card where in one mail they send you the actual card and the other with some kind of activation number.

Surprised at minimum I couldn’t deposit money on my own as usually too as usually security wise you just can’t take money out.

I saw this advertisement recently from a bank called Scotiabank here and they were offering this debit card program called “Bank The Rest” which is suppose to help you save money. Essentially, whenever you spend money with a debit card through this program they will automatically deposit some money into an account dubbed as the “Money Master” account.

An example I read is you can instruct the bank to round off your purchases to the next dollar and that difference will go into your savings. It would be something like if you told them to round off your purchase to the next dollar that means if you bought an item for 75 cents then 25 cents will go into your savings account. I suppose in theory it is like you putting your loose change into your savings. You can read more about it at http://www.scotiabank.com/BankTheRest/

I am personally having a very hard time seeing how this can be effective in the long run though. The first thing of course is that I would rather use a credit card to get points and free cash. As well, since this plan essentially takes money out of one account to the other I would be inclined to say that it is a little redundant. I can imagine the transaction fees too from using the debit card so much unless you are on an unlimited plan.

This is more of a tool to use as a wakeup call I’d say meaning you can see if you spend way too much to be able to accumulate a large savings this way. It would kind of be a funny and useful tool for a parent to use on a kid or teenager though assuming they aren’t exactly bank savvy and can be a way to direct funds into a savings account.