Last week, I wrote about skimmers and how they can steal your ATM/Debit card information.

In this post, I want to give you a very basic, common sense strategy to keep your money as safe as possible.

It’s a very simply approach.  And while it can’t keep all your money from being stolen, it can minimize the amount a thief can get his hands on.  I can’t take credit for this strategy as it comes from information that I’ve come across on the internet.  But it makes sense to me.  You may want tot employ it.

Simply stated, have more than one bank account.  You can keep them at separate banks, if you wish.  Keep the lion’s share of you funds in bank account #1.  Place money you need for day to day expenses in bank account  #2.

Don’t link the accounts on your ATM/Debit card.

Pretty simple.

Let’s say you have $10,000.00.   Open a checking and savings account at ABC Bank.  Place $9,000.00 in a savings account.  You now have $1,000.00 in cash.  Open a checking account and place $600.00 in this account.  When the bank issues you an ATM/Debit card, make sure not to have the  savings account tied to it. The only cash associated with the card is the $600.00 in the checking account.

Now, go across the street to  XYZ bank.  Open a checking account and deposit the remaining $400.00.  You’ll get an ATM/Credit card issued  from this bank.

Use the card from bank XYZ bank as your primary source of cash since it only has $400.00 tied to it.  Make it a rule of thumb to only have enough money in this account to meet daily expenses (gassing up the car, groceries, etc.)

This way, if a thief steals your card or gets the account numbers, you can immediately see (from online banking) any unauthorized charge.  Chances are pretty good it would probably exceed the amount of cash you have in the account.  And since it would probably be used as a credit card purchase, in most cases, you would be insured against this loss (check with your bank first!).

If the thief gets your card and your security code, the most they would get is the few hundred dollars you have in the account.   You would certainly lose this money (debit card purchases and ATM withdrawals are not insured. Again, check with your bank), but at least your $9,000.00 savings would be untouched.  It’s at another bank. And this is why the card from ABC bank should be put in a safe place and only used in a pinch.

Most banks offer free ACH services, so it’s easy to set up an electronic deposit from Bank #1 to bank #2.

If your money runs low in the XYZ account and  card, you can use online banking at ABC bank to electronically transfer money to XYZ bank.

Again, the trick is to have the majority of your money in a bank account that is not tied to any ATM/Debit card.  Then, have a minimum amount of money in a different account in which you use your ATM/Debit card.  Use online banking services to transfer money and fund the day-to-day ATM/Debit card.