Make Your Money Matter: Join a Credit Union Today #MakeYourMoneyMatter

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Make Your Money Matter, in association with PSCU, though all views expressed are my own.

Make Your Money Matter: Join a Credit Union Today #MakeYourMoneyMatter

I grew up in a small town in Upstate New York where there was only one bank and if you wanted to utilize the local credit union you had to drive into the “city” which was a 45 minute drive from our house.  Talk about being limited in your choices of where to save your money.  Needless to say I made $3.35 an hour and didn’t have much money to save so it wasn’t until I moved to Florida that I joined my first credit union, The Central Florida Educator’s Federal Credit Union.  I believe back then you had to be an employee of the government or a teacher or something, but I don’t remember exactly.  I found out about the credit union through my job with the county and once I was given the opportunity to join I immediately closed my bank account.

For many years after I left Florida I believed you had to be an employee of the government or a teacher to join the credit union.  I lived in Georgia for years suffering with bank fees and horrible customer service only to find out that many credit unions were open to the public and free to join.  Why did this matter to me?  Being part of a credit union keeps the majority of your money in YOUR COMMUNITY!  Your money is still protected but unlike banks credit unions are not-for-profit cooperatives.  Members own the credit unions and all the profits go back to members in the form of lower interest rates or rebates or even dividends.  For example, for every $100 deposit at a credit union an average of $67 is redeployed to individual borrowers within the membership.

Other benefits of credit unions include:

• Convenience: There are 5,000 shared branches in the credit union network and 100,000 ATMs in the shared ATM network. In addition, 1,182 credit unions participate in shared branching networks.
• Membership Impact: In the last year, credit unions distributed more than $5.3 billion in member dividends and refunds on loan interest payments. Additionally, 2.4 million credit union members have obtained vital credit since 2007 when for-profit lenders pulled back during the same time period. Credit unions enabled a total of 43,800 members to refinance “bad” debt within the last year. And in that same span, credit unions helped more than 37,000 families attain higher education access with fair value private student loan financing.
• Community Impact: More than 3.7 million Americans have joined a credit union since the end of September 2011. Credit unions helped 786,000 members by extending more than $134 billion of mortgage financing credit in the last year. Some 1,224 credit unions offer financial literacy classes to help members make more informed financial decisions. And in the last year, credit unions provided more than $630 million within local communities for building infrastructure to support new commercial, residential, industrial and farm-related developments.

 If you are just getting started or if you are just looking to keep your money in your community be sure to look into joining a local credit union.  You can find more information on credit unions and why you should consider opening an account at Make Your Money Matter.

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About “Make Your Money Matter”

“Make Your Money Matter” is a campaign initiated by eight credit unions and PSCU with the goal of educating consumers about all the good things that come with joining a credit union.  The credit unions helping to spearhead the campaign alongside PSCU are Redwood Credit Union (Santa Rosa, Calif.); GTE Financial (Tampa, Fla.); Baxter Credit Union (Vernon Hills, Ill.); Firstmark Credit Union (San Antonio, Texas); Bethpage Federal Credit Union (Bethpage, N.Y.); Michigan First Credit Union (Lathrup Village, Mich.); OnPoint Community Credit Union (Portland, Ore.); and Mazuma Credit Union (Kansas City, Mo.).  PSCU is a leading provider of traditional and online financial services to credit unions.  For more information and to get involved, visit www.MakeYourMoneyMatter.org.