How to Save Money When the Banks Seem Bent on Bleeding You With Fees and Charges
It is as if everything around you conspires to keep you from saving any money at all.
How can you - when everyone around you is trying to nickel and dime you to death - the airlines, the banks, the colleges and schools, just everyone.
Here is how to save money even when endless fees and surcharges seem bent on undoing the effectiveness of every sacrifice you make to save.
Let's start with the banks and how they try to undo your best efforts at saving a little extra.
The banks are in a bad way from having dealt with home loan and credit card defaults over the last few years.
They are also suffering from all the new consumer protection rules that have made it difficult for them to quickly and easily make billions of dollars from unsuspecting customers through unfair fees and charges.
Take Bank of America for instance - one out of two American households has an account of some kind with Bank of America.
They actually make about 10% of all their operating income through nickel and dime surcharges, fees and charges.
There is a lot more that they have planned for the year 2011 too.
One of the most controversial fees you'll hear about this year is the monthly fee on checking accounts.
There are also going to be fees when you actually walk into your local branch instead of transacting on the Internet and there will be fees if you want to interact with a bank employee.
How to save money on these charges then? You've heard of credit unions haven't you? Not only do they have fewer rules and fees, they offer you a better, less complicated experience overall.
Not to mention, they give you cheaper loans and more interest on deposits.
It isn't uncommon to hear of everyday folks these days who have entirely given up their credit cards because they find them to be too costly.
This is the time when taking a loan out is cheaper than ever; why, they want know, are the credit card fees going up higher than ever before? Why is it so complicated to figure out how much exactly you are going to be paying? Not to mention, credit card companies are making it more difficult for people to hang on to the credit cards they have - if you don't use your credit card for too long, you'll find they just close it; and then, there are all kinds of fees for anything and everything from balance transfers, cash advances, annual fees, and even to be able to talk to customer care.
These fees actually make up half of all of their revenue at the credit card companies.
How to save money when the card companies seem so profligate their ways? Look at your credit card statement.
You will find that they tell you how much exactly your credit card balance is costing you these days.
Try very hard to pay back everything you owe them as early as possible.
Doing this will also help you improve your score.
The better your score, the better your terms are.
Do you have a child at college.
Of course, the fees are higher than ever - tens of thousands of dollars every year for the best private colleges.
But even if you do manage to scrape together enough to send your child there, that's just the beginning.
They have lab costs, library fees, orientation fees.
Whenever the colleges feel that they are running short of cash, they just dream up new fees to charge you.
There's nothing really that can do about this other than prepare for it.
A good figure to keep in mind for how much these fees are likely to end up costing you would be 15% of the tuition fees.
How can you - when everyone around you is trying to nickel and dime you to death - the airlines, the banks, the colleges and schools, just everyone.
Here is how to save money even when endless fees and surcharges seem bent on undoing the effectiveness of every sacrifice you make to save.
Let's start with the banks and how they try to undo your best efforts at saving a little extra.
The banks are in a bad way from having dealt with home loan and credit card defaults over the last few years.
They are also suffering from all the new consumer protection rules that have made it difficult for them to quickly and easily make billions of dollars from unsuspecting customers through unfair fees and charges.
Take Bank of America for instance - one out of two American households has an account of some kind with Bank of America.
They actually make about 10% of all their operating income through nickel and dime surcharges, fees and charges.
There is a lot more that they have planned for the year 2011 too.
One of the most controversial fees you'll hear about this year is the monthly fee on checking accounts.
There are also going to be fees when you actually walk into your local branch instead of transacting on the Internet and there will be fees if you want to interact with a bank employee.
How to save money on these charges then? You've heard of credit unions haven't you? Not only do they have fewer rules and fees, they offer you a better, less complicated experience overall.
Not to mention, they give you cheaper loans and more interest on deposits.
It isn't uncommon to hear of everyday folks these days who have entirely given up their credit cards because they find them to be too costly.
This is the time when taking a loan out is cheaper than ever; why, they want know, are the credit card fees going up higher than ever before? Why is it so complicated to figure out how much exactly you are going to be paying? Not to mention, credit card companies are making it more difficult for people to hang on to the credit cards they have - if you don't use your credit card for too long, you'll find they just close it; and then, there are all kinds of fees for anything and everything from balance transfers, cash advances, annual fees, and even to be able to talk to customer care.
These fees actually make up half of all of their revenue at the credit card companies.
How to save money when the card companies seem so profligate their ways? Look at your credit card statement.
You will find that they tell you how much exactly your credit card balance is costing you these days.
Try very hard to pay back everything you owe them as early as possible.
Doing this will also help you improve your score.
The better your score, the better your terms are.
Do you have a child at college.
Of course, the fees are higher than ever - tens of thousands of dollars every year for the best private colleges.
But even if you do manage to scrape together enough to send your child there, that's just the beginning.
They have lab costs, library fees, orientation fees.
Whenever the colleges feel that they are running short of cash, they just dream up new fees to charge you.
There's nothing really that can do about this other than prepare for it.
A good figure to keep in mind for how much these fees are likely to end up costing you would be 15% of the tuition fees.
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