I don’t know about you, but I have encountered a proliferation of fees lately, which I have been striving to avoid if at all possible. I for one try to limit exposure to said fees by only doing business with those who do not “nickel and dime” me as their customer. Usually there is a work around available so by all means I suggest availing yourself of it.
For example, our national bank does not have local branches near us so we do all our banking online and get cash as necessary from local ATMs that are part of our bank’s fee-free network. Until recently we had three main alternatives but one of them has started charging an access fee of almost four bucks so now we deal with the other two exclusively.
Also, our property management firm uses an app for tenant business and until recently all electronic payments were free but for some odd reason they started to charge a fee of about three bucks for paying DIGITALLY. So, I now write a check and walk it down the block to the local office to pay our rent, which even creates more work for them, but whatever.
The only other bill I pay with a check is our water bill that I walk down the block to city hall each month. With reference to our online bank, we pay no monthly fees and earn a higher than average interest rate to boot. And there are no minimum balance fees or other charges that most banks typically levy.
Another recent ploy of some businesses is to transfer the usual credit card usage fee to customers, which at about three percent of the overall transaction can add up pretty quickly. So, I either pay cash at such establishments or quit patronizing them. While each of the above fees is not huge in and of itself, they all add up over time, so try to limit the total cost of them.