Last year, I wrote a post about my all-digital banking and budgeting setup with Simple. I told you all about how I’d crafted this system over multiple years and through lots of life changes, and I went on and on about how this was the absolute perfect setup for me. How I couldn’t be happier with it. How I looked forward to using it for many years to come.
What a fool I was.
An email hit my inbox not long after that article published. I can’t say for sure that the two events are related, but I’ll carry the suspicion to my grave. Because in that email, I was informed that Simple, my beloved bank that I’d entrusted with my entire financial life, was being shut down. Forever.
To make a long story short, Simple started as an independent fintech company but at one point was bought by a big bank called BBVA. Last year, BBVA made a deal to sell all of its U.S. assets to another big bank, called PNC. Apparently, Simple’s new owners weren’t interested in running an innovative neobank, so they unceremoniously shut it down and fired everyone who worked there. And they informed every Simple customer that they would soon become customers of BBVA USA, a traditional brick-and-mortar bank.
For me, reading that email felt like a gut punch. I didn’t want it to be true. Denial kicked in, and I told myself that maybe they would change their minds. But as the news started to spread and I saw more people sharing my feelings of shock and sadness, I came to accept that this thing I never saw coming really was true.
And thus began my lengthy process of finding an entirely new banking and budgeting setup. That’s what I’m here to tell you about today. (Fingers crossed that this blog post about my new finance setup won’t lead to its immediate destruction.) Figuring out life post-Simple has been a journey, and I’ve learned some things along the way.
Here’s the story.
Non-Linear Grief
Quick question: How do you feel about your bank? Do you like it? Hate it? Or are you just sort of apathetic towards it?
Based on my conversations with other people, it doesn’t seem like most have terribly strong feelings about the company they bank with. They choose a place based on proximity, or because it’s where their family has always done business, or simply because it offers the services they want, and then they don’t really think about it again. And why would they? If your bank does what you need it to do, then there’s really no reason for it to be front-of-mind.
But there are some of us who, strange as it may seem, do think about our banks a lot. I’m one of those people. I check my financial accounts several times a day because I care about keeping my budget updated to the penny, to the second. Which means that experience and the mindset behind it really matters to me. I know that’s not how most people handle their finances, but that’s just how my brain works.
And I’m not alone. Throughout my research to find a new solution, I came across so many other Simple customers who felt the same way I did about it. We loved Simple. It was so different from any other bank, and it was perfectly suited for people who wanted to handle their finances in a new way. From the beautiful design to the all-online experience to the finely-tuned budgeting tools that could work for any approach, Simple was something truly unique. And it had a special place in my heart.
So when I say that I mourned the loss of it, that may sound silly to you. But that bank was so important to me that losing it caused me actual grief. I was incredibly sad to see Simple go.
Just like any grieving process, it came in various, non-linear phases. Denial was my initial impulse, but I couldn’t stay there for long. Despair was the go-to. I just kept saying, “There will never be anything like Simple again.” Mixed in, of course, there was anger (“How could they do this to us?”), bargaining (“Maybe if we start a petition!”), frustration (“I just don’t get it!”), and more. This went on for a while.
But once I’d fully processed the news and accepted that things were changing, then I realized that I had a daunting task ahead of me: I needed to figure out a way to keep my finances organized without this tool that I’d become completely reliant on. I needed to replace Simple.
Searching
It was no help that we didn’t even have a solid date for when Simple would disappear from our lives. All I knew was that a clock had started ticking, and I needed to have some sort of plan in place before time ran out.
I looked everywhere for a bank similar to Simple, but none of the neobanks here in the States offer the same set of features. My setup includes a joint checking account, two personal checking accounts (one for myself and one for Katherine), a savings account, and budgeting tools to keep everything organized. Simple was the only option that offered all of those things in one package, and it wasn’t going to be an option for much longer.
So, after looking into every other possible solution out there, Katherine and I decided to keep our bank accounts with BBVA and go through the transition. We did this for a couple of reasons: First of all, it meant that we could keep all four of our accounts. One benefit of a traditional bank over a neobank is that you can create a combination of multiple accounts with shared access for some but not all of them; this is apparently quite complicated and not something most fintech companies want to tackle. (Yet another way Simple was different.)
Secondly, BBVA assured us that we could keep our same account numbers, routing numbers, and debit cards if we stuck with them. It seemed like a huge plus that we wouldn’t have to transfer our money to a new institution and change over all of our direct withdrawals and deposit.
At least if we couldn’t have a bank we loved, we could be like everyone else and have a boring bank we didn’t think about too much. That was the plan, at least. But we still needed a budgeting tool.
Again, I looked into them all. I downloaded so many different apps, signed up for every service available, and even reached out to friends and family for advice on what budgeting solutions to try. None of the tools I tried offered the flexibility and power that we had become accustomed to with Simple, and none of them precisely fit the way we budget.
After a lot of trial and error, I was able to hack together a workable solution with You Need a Budget, but I wasn’t happy with it. The design was not at all to my taste, the price was absurd for what I was using it for, and I had to do some weird tricks in the background to keep things automated and organized the way I liked them. It wasn’t great. So I resigned myself to not only using a bank I wasn’t in love with, but also a budgeting tool that I could barely stand. Not exactly an ideal solution.
Still with no clear idea of when Simple would be shutting down, I decided to enjoy it for as long as I could. I didn’t love my backup solution, but at least I had something to fall back on when the time came. Until then, I could appreciate the great tool I had, limited as its time may be.
But there was always that nagging feeling in the back of my mind that said, “This could go away at anytime.” I had no idea how much of a warning we’d get before Simple shut down. A week? A month? A day? There was no way to know, which left feeling like I was dangling by a thread with only a weak net below me to fall onto. I was still very much unsettled.
Then, by accident, I came across the app that completely changed this journey for me: OpenBudget. Created by developer and University of Minnesota student Khan Winter, OpenBudget is a new budgeting app for iPhone, iPad, and (soon) the Mac that just so happens to perfectly fit my needs and my aesthetic.
I was skeptical when I first downloaded the app because I had been burned before, but Katherine was excited that I had found something to try other than YNAB. (She found it even less appealing than I did.) So I went ahead and ported our budgeting setup to OpenBudget, and everything just clicked. The app was flexible enough for me to set things up the way I prefer and powerful enough to automate the stuff I don’t want to deal with. And the design was fresh, modern, and intuitive. It was perfect!
To say OpenBudget was a relief would be an understatement. I could finally imagine a positive future post-Simple. I had a system that I could see myself actually enjoying and getting full use out of without any janky workarounds. Budgeting was actually fun again, which reminded me of my early days as a Simple customer. It felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, and I didn’t have to worry anymore.
I liked OpenBudget so much that I went all-in on it and stopped doing any budgeting in the Simple app at all. I told myself I’d enjoy Simple to the very end, but my new budgeting tool was so great that it actually pulled me away. I started treating Simple like what it would soon become: just any other bank account. And sad as that was, I was excited by the solution I had found.
So with OpenBudget fully operational and a plan for transitioning to BBVA once Simple shut down, I had a solid plan for my financial future in place.
Or so I thought…
Fatal Error
The sad day finally came. It was announced that on May 8, all Simple customers would be transitioned over to BBVA accounts. I was nervous about moving to a new app, but it was encouraging to know that everything else I’d been using would stay the same. I had accepted that Simple was going away, and I was already really comfortable with using OpenBudget, so I wasn’t too terribly worried.
But I should have been. Because the transition from Simple to BBVA was a nightmare beyond anything I could have imagined.
It’s understandable that there might be a few glitches when transitioning thousands of accounts from one system to another. It would be reasonable to expect a few error messages along the way, a bump in the road for some of us. But what BBVA offered Simple users for a first impression was nothing short of inexcusable.
I downloaded the BBVA app on May 8 and tried to create a new login using my social security number and existing Simple account number as credentials. Upon creating a username and password but before setting up account security questions, I received an error message stating that my password needed to be reset. Weird, but okay.
So I went to the password reset form on BBVA’s website and was given a second error message: My account had been locked, and in order to access it, I needed to call customer service. Katherine got the same message when she tried to activate her account. A quick search on Twitter revealed that many, many people were having the same experience. To my knowledge, every former Simple customer was immediately locked out of their account upon transition.
This alone was frustrating. This company was converting a bunch of users of of an online-only bank to a new system, and the only way to gain access to their accounts was to call a service center? Not cool. Not cool at all.
But it only got worse from there. Because when I tried calling the support line, I did not receive an answer. Instead, I got a prerecorded message saying, “We are experiencing technical difficulties. Please call back later.” Then the system hung up on me.
What?
Let’s review: I tried enrolling my account online and was told I couldn’t get access without calling a phone number. When I called that phone number, no one answered. This was my first experience with this company that I was entrusting with all of my money. Confidence level: shattered.
I tried calling throughout the day and never got ahold of anyone. I did manage to get into a call hold queue and waited for an hour, but then the system just hung up on me again. By this time, I had been without access to my bank account for an entire day, and I had wasted half of that day trying to call my new bank, who simply would not pick up the phone.
I had gone from frustrated to full-on livid.
I expressed my feelings in a string of tweets that, cringey as they may be, I still stand by. The only way the company was communicating with customers was via social media, and basically all they were saying was, “We know you’re having issues. Your debit card still works, so don’t worry. We’ll extend customer service hours tomorrow.” Absolutely useless. I found myself thinking, “What have I gotten myself into?”
The next day was Mother’s Day, and I spent the entire three-hour drive to my mom’s house on the phone trying to get someone in customer support to answer me. After many, many attempts, I was finally able to connect with someone who reset my password and got me into my account. They were able to get Katherine logged in as well. We were actually fortunate to have only locked out of our accounts for a couple of days, because some of my fellow former Simple users went through this same process for over a week before finding a resolution.
Once we regained access our accounts, Katherine and I discovered that all was not well. Our funds were there, but none of our accounts had the proper routing numbers listed. Part of the reason we stuck with BBVA in the first place was their promise not to change our account or routing numbers and thus break our direct deposits and withdrawals. But based on the information provided in the app, that promise wasn’t being delivered on.
So we called customer support again and went through the lengthy process of trying to explain our concern. The customer support agent eventually assured us that, despite what the accounts were showing, our routing numbers had not changed, and none of our transactions would be affected.
I didn’t have a lot of faith in this company after the onboarding experience they’d just put me through, but I also didn’t have any choice but to trust them. All I could do was wait around for the first direct deposit to come through later in the week, which would confirm that everything was still working. It did, which put my mind at ease a little bit.
But by this point, I felt like I had been completely burned by my bank, and that’s not a good feeling at all.
Not to mention that their app isn’t very good. BBVA is a traditional bank, so their online experience is meant to be an occasionally-used add-on to their core services. It’s not the focus at all, and it shows. That’s not at all the mindset I was used to with Simple, where online and mobile banking were the top priority. For me, that was really important. I just didn’t realize how important until I tried going back to the old way.
Within two days of becoming BBVA customers, Katherine and I knew it wasn’t going to be a good fit. We were exhausted and frustrated from what we’d been put through in the transition, and we didn’t have any reason to trust these people with our money for the foreseeable future.
And so, worn out and a little bit jaded, we went back to the drawing board.
Back to the Future (of Finance)
I’d already done the research and concluded that there weren’t any options that would offer a one-stop solution the way Simple and BBVA did. But Simple was gone, and BBVA was trash, so it was time to figure something out.
Should we switch to a local bank? That might make accessing customer service easier, but it would come with a lot of the same problems that BBVA had. Namely, our local banks are traditional banks, not internet-first ones. We didn’t want to swap one traditional bank for another and end up with the same frustrations. We needed something with a 21st-century approach.
But none of the neobanks here in the U.S. offered the multiple account setup that we needed, so we couldn’t just pick one and switch to it. We would either have to split our accounts across multiple services or completely rethink our approach. We ended up doing a little of both.
The breakthrough came when I randomly tweeted my feelings of missing Simple and my friend Bekah, a fellow Simple user, suggested I look into her new bank: Social Finance, or SoFi.
I was familiar with SoFi already. I’ve actually been using them for years to manage my Roth IRA retirement account. When I signed up with them long ago, they didn’t offer a banking solution. And when they did release their SoFi Money option, I dismissed it because it didn’t offer the ability to set up multiple separate accounts.
But at my friend’s suggestion, I gave SoFi a second look and discovered that they do offer a feature a lot of fintech companies don’t: true joint accounts. This meant that Katherine and I could create an account together that we each equally co-own and manage, and we could use it as our primary checking account. SoFi even offers money “vaults” within these accounts for savings, which meant we could move our savings account to SoFi as well. Brilliant.
So we signed up for SoFi Money, and we both immediately loved it! For former Simple customers, SoFi felt very intuitive and familiar; we were right at home. The app is designed beautifully, it offers all the features we were looking for, and customer service is quick, helpful, and available online. It turns out that SoFi is exactly what we were looking for to replace our shared accounts in Simple.
So that solved part of our problem. But what about our two personal checking accounts? That’s where we had to get a bit creative.
As funny as it may sound, we actually ended up just moving our personal funds to our respective Cash app accounts. You might know Cash as a way of sending money to your friends, but over the past few years, they’ve actually been expanding the app’s features to the point that it now acts as a sort of protobank. You can order a debit card to spend funds out of your account. Each Cash account has a routing and account number, which means you can set up direct deposits and even make credit card payments with it. Really, Cash app offers everything we need for our personal spending, which mostly consists of hobby spending and gifts for each other anyway.
To be clear, the money we put into Cash app is quite insignificant compared to our joint accounts. Much as I respect and appreciate Square as a company, I’m not sure I’d trust my paycheck or life’s savings to something like Cash app. But for our personal spending, it works great. It’s easy to move money into and out of, and it keeps those funds separate from our shared account. It’s exactly what we were looking for.
So to recap, Katherine and I went from having four accounts (shared checking, shared savings, and two personal checking) with Simple to one shared account with SoFi and two personal accounts with Cash app. And we’re now using OpenBudget for money management instead of an integrated tool provided by our bank. That’s where we’re at.
And we’re actually really happy with it. We were both nervous about transferring our funds, spreading them out across different services, and making sure that all of our recurring deposits and expenses moved over to the new accounts. But it wasn’t nearly as difficult or time-intensive to move things over as we thought it would be, and this new setup has worked like a charm.
The best thing is that we’re back in business with companies that share the same values and outlooks that we do. I’m proud of the people I do my finances with again. I can recommend my solution to other people. Doing things this way feels natural and modern, and it works with the way my brain operates. That feels really good.
It’s been a bumpy and sometimes nerve-wracking road, but it led my family to a place that we’re completely satisfied with. I’d say it’s all been worth it.
If I had the option—if I could snap my fingers and make Simple exist again—would I do it? Almost certainly, because that setup was just so perfect for the way I handle money. But this setup is perfect in its own way, too, and it’s really forced me to push myself, explore what’s out there, and figure out why I do things the way I do them. I think I’m better for that.
Lessons Learned
Why would I write a whole blog post about something as mundane as switching banks? Well, because it’s been quite the emotional journey for me, and I’ve actually learned a lot from it. I try to learn from everything I experience in life, but this process in particular has been a major growth opportunity for me. Here are a few lessons I’ve gleaned from figuring out life after Simple:
1. Change can be good.
Fearing change is perfectly natural, and we all do it to some degree. I am a creature of habit to a fault, and I do not like to mix things up unnecessarily. When I got that first email informing me that Simple would be closing, it felt like my financial world was coming to an end. The apprehension was debilitating.
But once I accepted what was coming and fully adapted to it, it actually turned out for the best. It’s nice to be able to see that from this side of things; I’m going to try to remember it the next time change rears its head in a big way.
2. The path of least resistance isn’t always the best one.
Katherine and I thought we were doing the right thing by sticking with BBVA despite our hesitations, but we were wrong. It turns out that we should have gone with our gut and trusted our initial feelings of uneasiness. Trying to take the easy way out led to immediate disaster. If we had jumped ship earlier, we could have saved ourselves a good deal of trouble and gotten this transition over with much sooner.
3. I approach money/banking differently than most others.
Maybe it’s a generational thing. Maybe it’s because I love technology so much. Maybe Simple just spoiled me and I refuse to do things any other way. I don’t know, but what I do know is that traditional banking is not for me. I can’t go back to doing things that way.
I truly believe exclusively online banking is the future, and I know a lot fintech companies are working hard to make it happen. Personally, I’ll never consider a non-neobank solution again, and I’m going to continue encouraging others to give the new way a try. It’s so much better.
4. Just because something works, that doesn’t mean it’s the only way.
In case you can’t tell, I loved my family’s financial setup in Simple. It was perfect, and I never thought anything else could ever work as well for us. But this experience forced me to try to create an ideal without Simple, and that’s exactly what I did.
Did I want to split our finances up across all of these different apps and services? Of course not. I was thoroughly convinced that handling it all in one place was the only way to go. But I was wrong. It turns out there’s more than one correct way to handle such things.
In fact, having these different aspects of our financial life split up the way we do actually has its advantages. With Simple, we were locked in to one service, and that was great for all the reasons I’ve expounded on before. But now, our financial setup is modular, which means we can swap out pieces as needed.
Because our budgeting tool, OpenBudget, is completely separate from our banking app, we were able to switch from BBVA to SoFi without missing a beat on our money management. If Katherine or I find a new bank we want to try out for our personal accounts, it’s really easy to switch over from Cash app without the pressure of moving everything out of a centralized system. Even if we someday decide to move our shared account way from SoFi to the next big neobank (doubtful) or if SoFi goes away as these things sometimes do (😬), it won’t feel like such a big deal. We aren’t locked in to anything anymore, and that’s really freeing—and fun!
5. Don’t stress the small stuff; it’s going to be okay.
I admit that I was a bit depressed when Simple shut down. I convinced myself that decades from now, I’d be looking back and thinking, “There never was anything like Simple.” And while it’s true that it was one-of-a-kind, it wasn’t the only possible solution like I’d made it out to be in my head.
I accepted the reality of what was happening. I did the research to find out what my options were. And I worked together with my wife to figure out the best path forward for us. And in doing so, we solved the problems we were facing.
Everything didn’t fall apart! It’s all okay. In fact, it’s better in some ways than it was. There was no reason for despair. Really, I’m blessed to have this issue in the first place. Having a financial life in need of managing is something to be truly thankful for. And this process has only made me even more grateful for it.
