Reduce your bank fees with these simple tips

Bank fees are on the increase, and if you don't look at trying to reduce them you will be paying even more for the privilage of keeping money in the bank.  In this blog post we provide four tips to help you reduce your bank fees.

Tip 1: Transaction fees when refinancing your mortgage: when refinancing your mortgage, keep an eye on what banks offer no transaction fees if you bring your mortgage over to them. Transaction fees can be quite significant.




Tip 2: Ask the bank if they will waive a bounced check fee: Writing cheques that bounce will cost you between $20 and $35. Make sure you always have the money before writing a cheque. But if you do have one bounce depending on your credit history the banks can be surprisingly forgiving and refund you the money. Worth a try. Although not where we live as expats...if a cheque bounces it is a criminal offence and you have to go to court and possibly jail (definitely a good incentive to balance the books!)



Tip 3: Keep minimum funds in your cheque account: Here's another incentive. Cheque accounts don't earn large amounts of interest, therefore it makes sense to transfer extra money in these accounts to your savings accounts where they earn a higher rate of Interest. Just make sure that you have enough in the account to cover all of the checks that you write. As recommended above, $1000 is good.



Tip 4: Use a no fee cheque account: Why should you pay for writing your cheques. Find a bank that offers a no fee checking account. There are quite a few banks out there that offer these accounts. Something, you have to have a minimum balance. If this is the case weight up the difference between paying fees and the Interest you would earn in a normal account. Go with the one that saves you or makes you the most money.

So there you have it, four tips to help you reduce your banking fees.  If you want to learn how to save $1000s a year then check out our Money Saving Tips e-book.

In other views...

Our wife has safely arrived back from Ethiopia where she was visiting ophanages and hospitals.  She had a great time and said it was a really eye opening experience.  Your editor also survived looking after the three kids (aged 7, 6 and 4) and balancing work and the school run.

Below is a photo of my wife at one of the ophanages

Cheers

Rusty