Followers of Dave Ramsey know what a stupid tax is. For those of you who do not know, a stupid tax is money you lost, spent, or had to pay for doing something that, in hindsight, is stupid.
In our case, DW and I are intent on eliminating our mortgage. We are so intent on it, that when a milestone presented itself as being "in reach," we reached out and grabbed it by paying more than we had planned for February.
Well, the bank statement had a $12 fee... What the heck?! It's "free checking!" As I live overseas, I cannot make a direct deposit. Therefore, free checking requires a $1500 minimum daily balance. Well, we dipped below $1500 for a couple of days, and whammo! $12 down the tubes.
Now, a lot of folks would tell me to go to the bank and complain to get my money back. I have a very strict code of ethics. If I were in the right, I would definitely complain - loudly and long - until I got the charge rescinded. In this case, though, I was in the wrong, and therefore will pay the fee.
The real kicker is that we have enough money in our other accounts that we could have easily transferred the money before sending the payment and avoided the fee altogether.
I hope it is "lesson learned," and we don't incur the onerous fee again. I think the $12 amount is outrageous, and when I get a chance, I'll be transferring my accounts to my "other bank." We have avoided doing this so far, only because of all of the direct withdrawals we have coming from the current account. The twelve dollars is our incentive to make the effort to get away from what Clark Howard terms "the big monster megabank."
Paid a Stupid Tax
March 3rd, 2013 at 02:08 am
March 3rd, 2013 at 05:19 am 1362287985
March 3rd, 2013 at 06:41 am 1362292912
March 3rd, 2013 at 10:36 am 1362306992
March 3rd, 2013 at 07:48 pm 1362340105
I have two checking accounts. One is a local bank and it is completely free checking and the only condition is one paycheck a month has to be direct deposited. It pays no interest though and if I ever travel out of our little region I'm paying ATM fees if I want cash. The other is a National Bank that refunds all foreign ATM fees etc. and pays a whopping .1% in interest, but finding a branch and talking to a real human is impossible. We can electronically move money between the two of them fairly easy, so we muddle through.
March 4th, 2013 at 08:35 pm 1362429345
Jerry
March 5th, 2013 at 02:26 am 1362450405