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Varo Bank + Belive Card

10 July 2026 | 1:30 p.m. | Édith Héroux

I've been using Varo bank for online banking since January, almost 12 months. I love their app and my banking experience so far and wanted to share that with you! One of my favorite features has been the Believe card, which I just got access to with a new job (before November, all of my income was through writing!).

I'm still working on rebuilding my credit, and banking with Varo has helped improve my score this year. One of the big ways is by paying my phone bill monthly with my Believe card. I'm trying to get to the point of where writing pays all my major bills, but a girl's gotta start somewhere, right?

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Varo Bank

I use my varo bank account for all my personal banking I have a business account elsewhere that all my writing money goes into. I pay myself a small stipend monthly from there, but I recently took on a second job this fall. What I make from that job goes into my Varo account. Because I direct deposit, I was able to qualify for the Believe Credit Building Account. I'll talk more about that below, but it was super easy to set up the accounts.

I don't have any monthly bank fees, which might seem small, but when you're living off a tiny budget every bit of money saved helps so much. The website is pretty easy to navigate, but the app is definitely better. There are some things that can only be done in the app so a smartphone or tablet of some kind is a must here. Without direct deposits of over $1000 or more each month, the APY on a savings account is 2.5%. With enough qualifying deposits, that jumps to 5%!

My favorite features are the auto saving and save your change (round-ups), which is probably pretty standard on a lot of bank accounts now. The Believe account and checking accounts don't earn interest, so I keep a majority of my money in the savings account and transfer it when I need to buy something. There isn't any kind of savings reserves/folders/sub accounts for saving up for a specific goal, but since I'm still very much living paycheck to paycheck, Varo hits the essentials that I need in a bank.

Believe Credit Building Account

In order to qualify for a Varo Believe Credit Building Account, you have to have a qualifying direct deposit of $500 or more in a 90 day period. This isn't a traditional credit card, because you can set your own credit limit and you can only spend what you transfer into your Believe account. I use my Believe account to pay for my textbooks, and so with each paycheck I set a percentage into my Believe account for when I need to buy new textbooks each semester.

All in all, this is a great account for someone who is new to banking on their own and doesn't want to deal with monthly bank fees. I use my Varo account for pretty much everything at this point and highly reccomend it.

XOXO

Édith

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