Beware of things that go deduct in the night: how to avoid bank fees

A woman sleeping in bed
October 10, 2024 | Ben Heinze

Ghosts, ghouls and goblins may be spooky, but unnecessary bank fees are downright terrifying. Seeing your hard-earned cash deducted by a big bank for seemingly no reason is the stuff of nightmares. Thankfully, there’s a silver lining—bank fees are often entirely avoidable. Learn what bank fees to look out for and how to avoid them.

Fees you’ll learn about:

Monthly maintenance fees

Fees for taking certain actions are bad enough, but a monthly maintenance fee charges you for simply having an account. Sometimes, there are requirements you can meet to have these fees waived, such as maintaining a minimum balance in your account.

If that’s not spooky enough, the statistics around how much Americans pay annually in maintenance fees are. According to Bankrate, the average monthly fee for a non-interest checking account is $5.31, totaling about $65 a year.

Meeting the requirements to waive monthly maintenance fees will release you from their grasp, but there’s an even better solution—many financial institutions won’t charge these fees at all. With these accounts, you’ll never have to worry about keeping up with the requirements to have maintenance fees waived again.

Overdraft fees

The mere mention of overdraft fees should be enough to send chills down your spine. Seeing an account with a negative balance is bad enough, but an overdraft fee doubles down by taking your account balance even further into the negative. Thankfully, more and more financial institutions are eliminating overdraft fees, including Alliant.19

Much like garlic can be used to fend off encroaching vampires, some financial institutions offer overdraft protection to fend off an encroaching overdraft fee. This is typically a free feature you need to opt-in to, but once active, it will automatically pull money from other accounts if a transaction would otherwise make an account go negative.

On top of this, there are features like courtesy pay, where checks, other transactions made using your checking account number and external automatic bill payments that extend beyond overdraft protection and won’t clear due to insufficient funds will be covered.19 Of course, you must pay back the amount, but you will have avoided an unnecessary fee.

ATM fees

Whether you need cash for tricks or for treats, no one likes paying a fee just for taking out cash from an ATM. Still, there are times when paying with physical cash is the only option.

Good news—there are ways to eliminate those fees from haunting your finances. Financial institutions have in-network ATMs that won’t charge fees when withdrawing cash. Having bank or credit union accounts with an extensive ATM network makes avoiding fees much more convenient.

Still, there are times you may find yourself needing cash now, and the ATM available isn’t in-network. No need to be frightened, as some financial institutions, including Alliant, offer ATM rebates that will reimburse ATM fees up to a certain amount or number of transactions. For example, Alliant has over 80,000+ in-network ATMs throughout the country59 and gives up to $20/month in ATM reimbursements when using out-of-network ATMs.19

Paper statement fees

Most financial institutions will let you choose between receiving paper statements via mail or receiving eStatements online. However, receiving paper statements often results in a small fee charged for each statement.

Avoiding this fee is easy. Simply log in to your account and change how you’d like to receive statement from paper to eStatements. In addition to avoiding the fee, there are multiple other benefits to eStatements. It’s the environmentally friendly option, cutting down on excess paper use. It also lowers the risk of something far more haunting than any monster—identity theft.

Avoid being haunted by even more fees

While these are some of the most common and frustrating bank fees, there are many more possible fees you could be charged. The best and easiest way to avoid these fees is to switch your accounts over to a financial institution dedicated to keeping fees to a minimum. By doing so, you can feel confident you won’t be haunted by deductions in the night.


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