How free is free checking

Have you ever heard of free checking accounts? Most people have and they are more popular than ever right now, but are they actually free? This is an important question because these checking accounts are popping up all over the place. Not only banks offer these free checking accounts you can also find them online at many different virtual banks. These free checking accounts are actually more common online than offline.

Thousands of banks are using these free checking accounts to draw in more customers each year. Banks are sneaky they figure that if they can make you a customer then they can get you to purchase some of their other products such as a loan, other accounts or even insurance. And the thing is that this strategy is working for them.

Free is not necessarily free, there are some fees that banks are not allowed to charge when they have designated a checking account as a free one but that still leaves others that they can charge. Such as insufficient funds fees. These fees can really add up and they will occur if you overdraw your account. This can be done by writing a bad check or by using your ATM card. Some other common fees that pop up on free checking accounts are stop funds fees, balance inquiries, bankbook copies and even check printing. And these are just to name a few. And don't forget that your ATM card cost money too. Every time that you use it you will have to pay a fee and these are not cheap.

On top of paying for overdrawing your account you will also have to pay for the protection. Overdraft protection costs money but still does not always protect you from overdraft fees. These fees are not even told to the consumer. Many of these overdraft plans are forced upon consumers without them even knowing it.

None of these fees make these checking accounts bad per se since these are all fees that apply to regular checking accounts as well. And regular accounts have all of these fees and more.

You will find that some of the banks that you might deal with will not charge you any fees if you always keep a certain amount of money in your account. The trick to using these free checking accounts is to first find out just what you need from yours. How many checks do you need to write each month and how many transactions are you planning on carrying out on a monthly basis? Figure these things out and ask all kinds of questions before you open your account. You need to find out all of the details before you open the account. This way you will not be surprised when it turns out that your accounts are not actually as free as they claimed to be.

If you sign up for a free checking account during a special promotion you need to check out the finer details. These are often limited accounts and the free aspect can sometimes only last for so long.