mellowtigger | inspection, and a question (Reply)

The city inspector just came by my house, walked all around and signed off on the window installation and carbon monoxide detectors. He surprised me by saying that I don't need a carbon monoxide detector in the basement, just within 5 feet (I think he said) of a bedroom door. Strange, since the basement furnace and hot water heater are the only flames in the house.

That part is done for the year. I'll wait a while longer before taking off my mask. I don't like having people inside my house, even less since the pandemic than before. I also bought a new battery-powered drill (to install some 10-year combination smoke and CO detectors) after the window install. I can't find my old one. I really hope it's me not seeing what's in front of me, rather than one of the many workers who's been inside my house this year taking mine away.

Question: How do people transfer money these days? I checked my bank balance recently, and it had a lot more money than I expected. That's thanks to a very generous check from my parents to more-than-cover the window installation this year. They wrote me a check, but considering the way things disappear from my house (usually just outside), the question came up about how to safely transfer money these days. I actually don't know.

I've gone online to check, and there certainly are options.

There seem to be dollar limits and fees on those person-to-person apps (Zelle, PayPal, Venmo, etc.), so they don't seem ideal. They're what I see used most often for people asking for money online. The plus here is that there's a full layer of separation between the transaction and the relevant bank account, so both parties never learn the details of the other party's account.
Linking bank accounts is a security danger, so even if it's possible to do between different people, I wouldn't. I do link my own checking and savings account. With only my own accounts, though, if my account credentials are ever compromised, at least I'm the only one who can get robbed.
This CNET article mentions that ACH (Automated Clearing House) transfers are basically like checks but online. I checked, and my small local bank does offer ACH services. I think that's like what payroll deposit uses. Still not great security, but better than writing physical checks and mailing them off. I think this might be the best option to transfer between family members?
I'm not really clear on how ACH is different from wire transfers, but wire transfers seem to incur fees but do handle very large values of money.

So what are you cool kids out there doing to transfer money?