Benefits of a Credit Union?

[SoonerTexan]

I feel so freakin' clueless about some of this stuff!

The employer I'm starting at in July is associated with (a rather large) credit union. I know it's hard to say one way or the other without the details, but are credit unions generally a better deal than using a bank like Chase or Bank of America? Especially when it comes to loans, etc?

[poky]

Not actually sure about loans, but in general, yes. What I've seen with our credit union: better interest rates on savings, very few fees for anything, good customer service. Our only headache was not being able to deposit paper checks easily once we moved out of the area. Even then it depends on where you move and what CU you're with - there IS a branch of another local CU here we could deposit checks at...but it's 20 minutes away - that is why we opened a KeyBank account when we noved here, and holy cow was that a mistake. PITA the entire way (and in my experience from before we joined our CU, BofA is worse). Took a while, but I finally switched us to USAA (I can take pictures of my paper checks with my phone to deposit them!) and ditched Key. But I'm keeping the CU accounts - better savings interest rates.

[OrionGrad]

Here's a pretty helpful (at least I think so) primer on the benefits of credit unions vs banks from US News & World Report:

http://www.usnews.com/money/articles...it-unions.html

I've always heard that credit unions offer better interest rates, especially on CDs, but I've never actually tried one myself.

[SuzySunshine]

We have a credit union and get great rates and good customer service, our safe deposit box rent is next to nothing and they refinanced part of our house without issue at all. We'll definitely stay with them as long as possible.

[oceanchild]

Shop around on rates. Not all credit unions are created equal. We joined a local one here and ended up dropping it in favor of the one affiliated with my former employer. They have no branches here (or anywhere that isn't the Washington DC area, for that matter), but we have credit union co-op access and can use other credit union branches here (including for deposits). We dropped the local one because the rates for savings and money market accounts weren't very good.

[bokelley]

WE use one and love it!! If you can get with one, then that is what I would do.

[SoonerTexan]

Thanks!