Tips For Avoiding Overdraft Fees – like Payday Loans

Tips For Avoiding Overdraft Fees

When was the last time you had an overdraft fee? It’s typically a memorable event that is usually accompanied by some self induced growling and occasional profanity. In short it’s an experience that doesn’t just roll off your back. Most of us will carry it around with us like a bad growth, and some people get payday loans to circumvent it.

Most feel tricked or betrayed when hit by an overdraft charge. Banks have gotten very constructive and even sneaky in there efforts to take advantage of this window of opportunity and they are not making a big effort in helping their clients avoid such situations either.

With the recent mortgage crisis their has been a sharp rise in the cost of banking fees. Many speculate that this is because of the revenue lost due to the increased number of mortgage defaults. Bank fees are at all time highs and getting nailed now can really put the hurt on your finances, and it may just be worth it to look into payday loans instead.

Here are some tips to help you avoid getting struck by overdraft fees.

Balance Your Account Often

Are your banks fees sneaking up on you?

Many of us may not give our bank account an appropriate amount of maintenance. In fact, a large majority will balance there account balance and check book only when they receive their monthly statement. This is indeed a good time to do so, but it should be balanced more than once a month. Loosing track of how much money is remaining in your account is the number one way to get hit by fees for insufficient funds.

At the very least take a few minutes at the end of each week to crunch the numbers and make sure everything balances out. The more often the better but at the very least strive for once a week and always compare the outcome with your monthly bank statement.

Open All Mail From Your Bank

Be sure to open your mail! If you have a habit of just throwing your mail from the bank into a miscellaneous pile on your desk or file them as they are, you may miss an important notice letting you know that your account has hit the red zone. Every check that hits the bank at this point is going to bounce and you are going to accrue an outrageous amount of overdraft charges. Always open you bank mail!.

Also if the mistake happens to be the banks fault, it is better to catch and dispute the problem early as the more fees that hit your account and compound’s the problem, the more difficult and frustrating it may be to sort the problem out.

Also, you must remember that the bank does everything by mail. When you overdraft your account you will not receive a phone call. This means that by the time you have found out about the discrepancy, a couple days may have already passed. Additional overdraft charges may have hit your account already.

Be Cautious of Rising Fees

The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) reported that 80% of our countries largest banks charge their customers high overdraft fees without their permission. It may come as a shock to you that your bank doesn’t need to get your permission to raise fees that will effect your banking experience, but they don’t. They are however, required to notify you by mail, but there is no requirement as to how small the fine print can be.

These notices will usually come with your bank statement. So once again, be sure to read your mail, including the fine print.

The problem that usually arises with rising fees is that the unaware consumer may be getting charged for dipping below a newly set minimum balance limit. These fees if left unrecorded, can eventually catch up with you in a big way as you get closer to zeroing out your account balance.

Another area that may sneak up on you are ATM fees. Usually your banks ATM fees won’t charge you for making a withdrawal but other banks ATM machines can get you into a whole lot of trouble. These charges can be close to four dollars in places. Leaving these fees unrecorded as said before, will eventually catch up to you so you must make sure that you are aware of any and all fees. Your bank is always ready to catch your mistake so be sure that you catch yourself from making them – which payday loans are great for.