bank fees?

[jessica31876]

Just curious how much your bank charges to bank with them. (not talking withdraw fees, insufficient funds fees, teller fees, transfer fees, check cashing fees etc etc.) Just the monthly fee to have an account with them. I do most of my banking with 5/3. Mostly because they are just down the road from them so they are really convenient. I also like that when we gi into the bank they know my name and my husband's name and we seldom have to wait longer then five minutes to be seen no matter what we are there to do whether it be talk to a teller or deal with the bank manager. I also have an account with Bank of Americca...and well they kinda stink. I have been with them for a really long time and have only one bill going though BOA still plus the money my son gets from his biological father. For those two things I am charged 12 dollars a month at BOA. At 5/3 I believe we pay 7.95 a month for all three accounts combined.

[mariewilcox]

Nothing. I bank with the credit union that I've had since I was in high school. The only "fee" is the $10 I had to put down to open the savings account more than 30 years ago and it just stays in my account but can't be taken out unless I close the account. No fee for the checking or anything else.

[Libby Pritchett]

I don't have a monthly fee at all. I've got an electronic account which basically means as long as I don't write more than 3 actual checks per month, there's no fee. So, I pay all my bills online and use my debit card instead of writing checks. I don't get a paper statement either... it's just all online. But it's worth it for no fee!

[Lyd]

I refuse to bank with people who are going to charge me fees just for having an account. We bank with Wells Fargo and a local credit union. No fees here. Part of the reason we use Wells for our major banking is because they are a big bank with ATMs all over the place. That way we can even avoid ATM fees when we travel, cause we can almost always find a Wells ATM.

[Nikki Epperson]

We have free checking. I used to pay $5.00 a month to get "free" checks and copies of all the checks that went through, but I realized it just wasn't worth it. We use a totally free acct now.

[MamaBee]

We don't pay fees either... we refuse too... I've been with the same credit union since I was 16 when my mom helped me open my first account. In the last five years or so, we have also moved to Charles Schwab just so we didn't have to pay ATM fees... So now my credit union is just for local stuff... the once in awhile time I need to cash a check or something.

[Andrea Gourley]

You have to pay to have a bank account? Like just an ordinary account - putting money in and taking it out again? Most bank accounts over here are free. There are some that you have to pay for but with these you get stuff like free holiday insurance, mobile phone insurance etc. I don't pay for any of my bank accounts or my credit card, money comes in, it leaves (at a fairly rapid pace!) and I always pay my credit card bill every month so incur no interest charges.

[digideb]

I've never paid for a bank account!

[marlathrall]

No fees at my bank either. My bank is one of the best things about living in a small town. I just go in, hand them a check, and they fill out the deposit slip, etc. It's quite nice.

[Arual]

We don't pay any fees. I also don't pay fees on my childrens accounts either.

[Darcy Baldwin]

Nope - no fees at ours, either. My grandmother's account (that I manage) does have a fee, but they offer a basic service that we switcher her to since we only write 1 check a month, so she's no longer paying anything, either.

[BrattyMeg]

no fees here on our bank or credit union

[jessica31876]

well that just sucks Every bank I have ever been with charges a monthly maintenance fee

[Darcy Baldwin]

Jessica - try to find a credit union - they usually don't.

[julifish]

Jess - In Tampa any kid that is in public school can get an account at the Teacher/Student credit union. Since the kids were members we were also able to get a free account. We use it for savings not banking (we use Wells Fargo and have since it was First Union 20 years ago). It's worth checking in to. I think it's Suncoast Teacher Credit Union - it might be a different name over by you. Hope this works for you!

What about Ally online?

[Julie Billingsley]

i was with a bank for a long time and they started to charge fees a couple of years ago. I had to switch to a certain type of account to get free banking and had to have a minimum in the account, then after a year they decided that wasn't good enough so to get free accounts I had to have money withdrawn from my checking and put into my savings monthly to have a free account. Then I got another notice that wasn't good enough anymore, that I was going to have to do yet another thing to get free checking. So I said forget it, and withdrew all my money and took it to a credit union. I've been with the CU for 4 months now and have never been happier with a banking institution.

[Tronesia]

I have never paid fees at my bank- had my first account there when I started college in 2002. The checking account I have is free as long as I have a deposit of a certain amount each month, which is not a big deal since my check is direct deposit.

[Nettio]

Originally Posted by Julie Billingsley

i was with a bank for a long time and they started to charge fees a couple of years ago. I had to switch to a certain type of account to get free banking and had to have a minimum in the account, then after a year they decided that wasn't good enough so to get free accounts I had to have money withdrawn from my checking and put into my savings monthly to have a free account. Then I got another notice that wasn't good enough anymore, that I was going to have to do yet another thing to get free checking. So I said forget it, and withdrew all my money and took it to a credit union. I've been with the CU for 4 months now and have never been happier with a banking institution.

This is pretty much what happened to me. I now bank with one of the military credit unions and it's SO much nicer.

[Milmomma]

No fees for us either. We are USAA fans.

[NeverendingJen]

no fees. we bank exclusively with military credit unions and such.

[Arual]

Originally Posted by Milmomma

No fees for us either. We are USAA fans.

One of the banks that we use is USAA. We looooooooove USAA!
I will also say that we have had debit card fraud several times in the last 14 months and USAA is always sooooooooo quick to get us our money back (always within a couple days) and always so very friendly and professional!

[mummytothree]

We have a "free" checking account. But we have banked at our bank (Chase- JP Morgan) for like 15 years. I don't think they offer free accounts anymore but we just keep getting grandfathered in because we have been with them so long. The only fees we ever encounter is if we use another banks ATM...but there are so many places that offer surcharge free ATM's that we haven't gotten any of those kinds of fees in years.

[kscwgirl]

We use a credit union also, so no fees.

[lauracw]

I had a free account with US Bank for years, but my husband's company doesn't do direct deposit, so they sent me a letter saying they are going to start charging us $7.95 a month in October, unless we have direct deposit of $500 a month. So we're bank shopping. I have a completely free account at PNC, but I haven't been a fan of their online banking in the past.

[jessica31876]

I am willing to pay the 7.95 a month for our main account because they will waive the first two fees for out of network ATM withraws and it is a local bank (not local like just in this state...local as in just down the road from our house). So the manager knows both my husband and I by name so it feels good to know if someone tried to access our account he would know it easant us. I think Im gonna close the BOA account though and go to either Fairwinds Credit Union or Central Florida Educators Credit Union.

[4noisyboys]

I bank with Bank of America and Wells Fargo and I don't pay any fees at all. They've both been great!

For traveling overseas, Wells Fargo had the best customer service and no fees to use the Debit card, so we only use that account when we travel!

[nun69]

we use Navy Federal Credit Union so no fees...and if we get charged an ATM fee, we get those back at the end of the month I banked with BOA years ago and hated them, so I have never banked with them since...we have been with NFCU since 2000 (you use to have to be overseas to sign up, but they changed the rules around 1999)

[Leila]

We use two different credit unions (one from when we lived in WI and one local). Both of them actually pay us interest on our balance at the end of the month when we meet certain criteria. (Use debit card X number of times per month, use electronic statements and bill pay, use direct deposit. There are a couple more on one, but I can't recall.) One of the accounts doesn't charge anything for ATM usage, the other reimburses for non-CU ATM usage (since we're out of state and they have no branches here.). I love it, no plans to go back to a regular bank ever.

[SweetMelissa]

I have several accounts with Bank of America and I'm not charged a fee. We have our joint checking account, a savings account for each child (so 3), our joint saving and my business account. We've had them for a year now.

[kristijoy]

We bank mostly at the credit union and the brockerage house. We have one little bitty account at 'Chase' that I opened so we could have a safe deposit box. I'll have to admit I'm not sure what the fee is for that...my DH does all the banking.

[scrap2day]

After many years of a "free" checking account my bank started charging monthly fees. In order to not have fees you had to write something like a check every other day. What? They must have gotten so many complaints because now we are back to free checking again.

I also have a couple of accounts at the credit union. I can't sing the praises of the credit union loud enough. I've since convinced my parents to open accounts at the credit union. Maybe it's just my credit union (which is local) but I'm convinced that once you go credit union it would be really difficult to convince me to go back to a bank.