As much as possible, even when you are already in deficit on your monthly expenses, put away some amount into an emergency fund. With hard times worsening from week to week, you have to prepare for a future when your finances drop to near zero. Or, worse –if you or a member of your family gets sick or meets an accident or some disaster strikes, immediate funds will be required.

Don’t just keep your emergency fund in a piggy bank, in a cookie jar, or under your mattress. Place it in an earning certificate of deposit, a money market account, or a simple savings account. Even if the yield rate on your emergency fund may be lower than the inflation rate, you are at least mitigating the effects of an erosion of the value of your money and what it can buy.

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Banks provide necessary services, but they are there for the money –your money. They are always cooking up new ways to charge you fees: miscellaneous fees, maintenance fees, online banking fees, excessive transaction fees, teller fees, etc.

Do not be taken in by offers of “no monthly fees” checking accounts. You can bet your bottom dollar the bank will make up for this freebie through some other fee.

Take time to shop around for a bank. Scrutinize their fees. Read the fine print. Keep records and study the entries. Avoid the charges that you can do without the next time around. Talk to the bank manager. Choose only the services that you really need.

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No such thing as a free lunch, specially in bank services. You do a bank a favor by opening a checking account and letting them earn on your money through loans & mortgages, and it charges you a monthly fee (which, in some banks, can go over $10 per month).

On opening an account, you get a free checkbook. Subsequent checkbooks are charged a fee for which some banks collect as much as $15, and this is for the plain checkbooks. The personalized versions (with background scenery, etc) cost much more –an extravagance and a needless expense. The important thing is that the check is filled out completely and correctly.

You want to make a long distance payment and it won’t get there in time if you send it through the mail. So, you send it through a wire transfer –for which the bank again charges you ($10 for a local bank, $15 or more for an international transfer).

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You don’t always have your checkbook with you and you don’t want to carry cash around. So, you use a debit card.

Remember, however, that every time you use your debit card you are charged a fee. The fees vary from institution to institution. Some charge less than a dollar, other charges much more. So, the more often you use your debit card, the more costly this bank service becomes.

How about ATM cards? If you withdraw from the ATM machine at the bank’s premises, you don’t get charged a transaction fee. Outside the bank premises, you are charged as little as a quarter or as much as a couple of dollars (depending on the location).

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No such thing as a free lunch, specially in bank services. You do a bank a favor by opening a checking account and it charges a monthly fee (which, in some banks, can go over $10 per month).

If you maintain a small balance, the bank will try to seduce you to put in more money by waiving the monthly fees. But –you have to look out for the fee that it will charge if you go below the minimum balance. Those extra charges can add up to a tidy sum.

I think this is an unfair exchange. You give the bank your money which they give to other bank customers as loans or mortgages –from which they earn hefty interest revenues. In effect, you have lent the bank interest-free money and –in exchange– it earns interest on your money.

Of course, if you need to regularly pay out significant amounts, you have no choice but to maintain a checking account –but look out for your bank balance and the fees you are charged. Scrutinize your bank statements and know the expenses you incur for availing of a bank service.

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