Avoiding Common Bank Fees and Charges

Common bank fees are a real downer. You can be just zipping along, feeling fine, scraping along the bottom of the barrel but still with fifty bucks in your account before payday and then enter some stupid bank fees. Maybe you wrote a check that bounced, maybe you forgot to enter something in your Quicken and used your debit card, or maybe you actually still pay to bank for whatever reason. Whatever the case may be common bank fees can lead you to having a bad day and can lead you to have less than you thought when you need it. consider these four tips to avoiding common bank fees and get on with your life.

Always Keep Some on Reserve: This one is the hardest to do but it's something you should do anyway. You should never have no money; if you can keep a little on the reserve. It doesn't even have to be very much but so long as you've got fifty or a hundred dollars at the bottom of your bank account balance you won't get pegged with any of those stupid fees.

ATM Use: If you use an ATM make sure you're not going to get those $1.00, $1.50, or $2.00 fees. If your bank still charges those fees it may be time to find a bank that doesn't. If you're in a pinch and you really need cash but can find an ATM nowhere in sight you can always conduct a debit card transaction and get cash back. A pack of gum is always cheaper than the ATM fees and you could use the help with your breath.

Never Overschedule: If you have a lot of bills to pay you may want to consider working with a debt consolidation service. One of the things which can really hurt you is having 10 bills to pay each month and getting zapped with fees on some or all of them because your payment was late or from your bank because your checks hadn't cleared. Never over schedule your bill payments; make sure that you have the money in your account and that it's available before you make a bill payment.

Ask For Help When You Need It: If you're in a spot, the best thing to do is over communicate with your bills. If you need some extra time to pay your bills your bill collectors will usually grant you a grace period. Asking or letting them know that your bills will be late is better than running from your bills, running from your no money, and running up those pesky bank fees.