Getting a bank account and PayPal is really just the beginning (essential receptacles for the cash I try to earn) but last time, I ended up writing a pretty substantial article on my SoFi bank account because I realized I did have some thoughts to share about it. I don’t really have as much to say about PayPal, so this entry isn’t fully devoted to it.
I mean… I do have feelings about PayPal. For one, I absolutely don’t trust them at all. But over the last few years I’ve had firsthand evidence of how difficult it is to function online without it. So as much as I wish I didn’t, I need a PayPal account.
Getting a New PayPal Account
The only reason I needed a “new” PayPal account is because I did have one for a long time, but it’s gone. My original PayPal account, which I had for years, was destroyed by false chargebacks from a previous employer. That’s a whole other story and I might tell it sometime, but losing that PayPal account seriously upended my life.
I wasn’t even sure if I could get a new PayPal account. Years have gone by since my original one was closed, but I think it must still be on record because I can’t use the email address or bank account that are tied to it to open a new account. But I have a new bank account now (the SoFi one, which I did check first to see if it would work with PayPal), and getting a new email address was simple. I used Proton Mail, mainly because I didn’t want another enormous “account” that tries to connect everything (like Gmail/Google). I just wanted an email address that wouldn’t sell information or try to “sync” or creep into every other aspect of my life. Proton seemed good for that.
With the new email and bank account I was able to open a new PayPal account. Everything seems ship-shape so far, but I’m going to be careful with it and I doubt I’ll leave much money in it for very long. Like I said, I don’t trust PayPal, so it’s primarily going to be a conduit to my bank account as opposed to a place I actually keep any funds.
A Tiny Trickle of Cash
When you’re starting from zero, everything matters. And without a PayPal account for so many years, there was a lot I couldn’t interact with. One of those things was Microsoft Cash Back, which I didn’t even take seriously — it was just a tiny percentage of a reward for shopping using the Edge browser. Back before I was laid off and did more shopping, I’d accumulated $2.38 in Microsoft Cash Back that I assumed I’d never see, but it turned out I could actually cash that out into my new PayPal account. It felt good to realize I could claim that, even though it’s such a small amount, because I didn’t expect to ever get it. I just assumed that for lots of reasons I’d never be able to cash that out; I thought I could only use it in specific ways, that I’d need to accumulate a lot more before I could claim it, that there was some kind of catch, etc. so I was happy to discover I could withdraw it to my PayPal account! From which I moved it to SoFi immediately.
I also have an old Google AdSense account I’m planning on trying to resurrect, and I currently have about $16 in it waiting to be paid out. I can’t get a payout till I reach $100 in it, but I did connect my SoFi bank account to it as my payout method. I actually don’t know why I hadn’t already connected it to my main bank account but I’m glad I didn’t. Anyway, Google sent me 17 cents to verify the account, which was also the first deposit this bank account ever received, and for some reason it cracks me up. I thought they were going to take the 17 cents back? But I guess it’s mine. Thank you Google, lol.
So my SoFi bank account only has $2.55 in it, but it’s MY $2.55 and not under constant scrutiny!
What’s Next?
It’s time to start growing that trickle into a bigger stream. I joined a few sites and installed a couple of apps — I got the idea for this blog a week or two after I’d begun this journey, so the entries are still catching up a bit to the situation at present. I’ll talk about those in the next entry so this one won’t get super long and can remain a bit more focused on its topic. I’d like to spend a bit of time talking about the sites and apps I’ve started out with, so it would be better to have their own entry where I can go in depth.
Thanks for reading!