i used to have an account at BMO and ScotiaBank. together i was paying well over 20 dollars a month in fees and my husband had an account at TD and he was paying about 8 dollars a month. 28 dollars a month (at the minimum–there were always occasions of having to use another kind of ATM and the dreaded extra charges) is a lot! 28 * 12 is $336 smackaroonies a year!!!! the switch was worth it.

Last month it became a $2 flat fee per transaction. Now I’ll have to drag the baby out of the car and go inside to pay with a check or cash to avoid the fee! What a pain in the neck. They probably believe most people would rather just pay the fee instead of having to walk to the building and pay another way.

Then I found a new type of $5 blanket bank fee. I still don’t know what that one is.

Times are tough and the banks are getting sneaky.

I transfer all of my income to my line of credit, and pay my bills from there. I don’t think I’ve seen a monthly fee on that since I’ve been using it (beyond interest charges), so I’m happy there.

As for my savings I chose ING Direct and in the long time I’ve been there, I can’t remember a single cent in banking fees.

I have to say I’m not loyal to banks. I’ve had bank of montreal as a kid, scotiabank and most recently CIBC. I usually switch b/c I hate the minimum amount. I switched from scotiabank years back when they upped the minimum to $2000. That’s $2000 not earning any interest and hard to keep up since I was just out of school! CIBC- I had their everyday chequing account, but even with withdrawing large amounts only twice a month, and basically not evening using my debit card I still couldn’t keep my transactions under 10 (rent cheque, credit card, phone bill, utilities, TTC, savings transfers etc). So I still ended up paying around $8-10 month. I finally decided to go with Citizens bank. It was a hassle changing my autotransfers and direct deposits, but I kept my old CIBC account open for several months after I switched just in case I missed a few auto transfers. While Citizen’s Bank doesn’t have a branch here I use the HSBC network ATMs so I don’t get charged. I spoken on the phone to their representatives who a very helpful and easy to get hold off. Besides, I haven’t stepped foot inside a bank to go to a teller in years…and usually that’s only to close an account!

It took my bank card being skimmed for me to give my head a shake and shake the bank off my wallet.

I’d had an account since I was a kid at my “ethnic closed bond” Credit Union, who don’t charge their members fees on their Canadian Dollar accounts (free cheques, free drafts, free online banking, free cheque images online…it’s intoxicating really!).

I’ve augmented this account with the usual suspects (at least to us frugal customers) PC Financial, Citizens Bank of Canada, ING Direct and Peoples Trust. Free FREE F-R-E-E!

I pride myself these days that my savings generate high interest, and (as it should be) my Financial Institutions pay me, not the other way around.

Yes, it takes some planning. I’m locked into the ‘Exchange” system with most of my accounts (credit unions and HSBC machines if you want the no-fee transactions), but with a little planning and a change in routine it becomes second nature.

I’m never going back to the big banks, you can’t make me!

I strongly suggest using PC bank for day-to-day, but if you have serious and potentially terminal health problems please switch!

-you are more likely to bank at the institution where you had your first bank account and/or where your parents banked

-even if you decide to close all your credit card accounts, you are likely to keep the first credit card account that you ever had (one reason they try so hard to attract students)

Banking is a business decision. Hopefully you manage your finances on a for-profit basis! Go with the cheapest (preferably free) option and suck up the minor inconveniences that may go along with it.

Banking is competitive, there is no reason to pay bank fees at all for day to day banking.

With the VISA with points included in our package with no fees(that we pay off every month), I was able to “buy” $1500 in gift certificates to put towards my mortgage in the fall. I was also able to get $200 in Future Shop gift certificates this Christmas.

They have also been very accomodating with our mortgage (I shopped around and they beat the lowest interest rate I could find AND ate the refinancing charge of approximately $1000 that we would have been charged if we went elsewhere because we were one year into a five year term).

What I really like is that I prefer my primary contact with them to be by email and they are willing to accomodate. When I do want to go in for a face to face, I can usually get an appointment within the same week.

So the big banks don’t have to be bad. You just have do be willing to advocate for yourself when needed.

But I only withdraw money from a TD ATM once per month. What I have done in my budget is figure out what needs to be paid by credit card (then paid in full, no matter what, the next month), what has to be put aside for variable expenses like the dentist and the vet, and what I need for cash purchases, such as groceries, throughout the month. I then pull out what I need for cash purchases at the beginning of the month, and at the end of every month, I send to my ING account the installment amounts toward my variable expenses in the same transfer that I use for taxes and emergency savings.

I used to pay $3.00 a month for overdraft protection, because as a freelancer, my payments didn’t always come in quite on time. But I’ve built up a little padding in my account over the past few months, and have even more money in ING that I can get at within a day or two, so I’ve switched to the no-fee option where I pay $5 only if and when I go into overdraft. Now I work like the devil to keep my chequing account in the black, and I know that if worse comes to worst, I can pull some money from my line of credit which has a pretty darn low interest rate. But with padding and planning, I haven’t had to do that yet.