Many of us think that putting our money in the bank is a secure and wise way of saving. Yes, this is true if we are wise in dealing with banks. Banks are not charitable institutions, these are profit-driven entities which charge different kinds of fees and do all sorts of schemes to take away some of your money. The savings that you can get in being wise in making bank transactions can add up after some time and let you use your money where you want to.

Here are some tips on how to effectively save money in the bank:

Mind the Opportunity Cost

Think about the factors that are affecting your money in the bank. Are there fees that the bank is asking you to pay for keeping and using your own money? How much? Are they requiring a minimum balance for holding an account? You might be interested in other alternatives that are available out there, waiting for your investment. You should always factor in the opportunities that you are deprived of because you are putting your money in the bank. You might also be interested in taking a look into the terms of other banks. Probably the bank that can best suit your needs is out there waiting for you.

Book Balancing

Always bear in mind to have your checkbooks balanced at the end of every month. Issuing bounced checks can cost you a lot. The average fee for issuing checks with insufficient funds is $20. If you are not aware of the problem, you can easily issue several bounced checks in a certain period of time and this is very costly indeed.

Tame the ATM Machines

The best practice in using ATM machines is to avoid using ATM machines of other banks. This way, you will save on ATM fees. However, it wouldn’t hurt if you also knew the ATM machines of other banks which do not charge fees.

E-banking

With the advent of globalization, everything is becoming electronic. This is also true in the banking world and technology is quickly becoming a benchmark of competition. E-banking can save you some money from transportation costs and more importantly, it will save you time. The time you spend waiting at the bank can be used for some other productive activities.

Truly, putting your money in the bank is a wise way of saving money, but only if you are wise enough to prevent the bank from chipping away your wealth. In saving, it is not only the benefits such as annual returns which you should consider, you should always think about the costs involved in the process.

There’s a fine line between keeping track of the money that your family is spending and becoming an obnoxious jerk about it. You’re not going to be very popular in your family if you follow everyone around with a notebook and pen jotting down all of the expenditures that are being made. Not only will it seem very crass, bu it will really take a lot of fun out of things that should be enjoyable. There’s a better approach.

We know it’s important that we keep track of where the money is going. We can’t just spend recklessly and blindly without accounting for where funds are flowing. So how do we track expenditures without being obnoxious about it?

Think about how how many of us make purchases. We either use a check, or we use a credit card. While it’s true that we sometimes use cash, that cash often comes straight from a bank checking account or savings account. You’ll see how you can track the cash in a moment. But let’s initially turn our attention to credit cards and checks.

Do you literally have to be standing over someone’s shoulder looking to see who they’re writing a check to at the moment the check is being drafted? How about when someone is making a credit card purchase? Do you literally have to be right there monitoring what the money is being spent on? See, this is what would make people feel a bit uncomfortable. Doing things like this would be obnoxious — and they’re completely unnecessary.

You can easily audit checking accounts at the end of the month and even look at the checkbook to see where the checks were made out to — assuming accurate records are kept, which they usually are. Credit cards are laughably simple to monitor. Every purchase results in a line-item entry when you get your monthly statement.

This brings us to cash. How can you monitor that? While it’s not as easily monitored, you can at least get a general sense of how much cash has been spent based on ATM transaction notices that are listed on your banking statements.

By following this advice, you can accurately monitor expenditures without being obnoxious about it. It’s not as hard as it might initially seem!