No – I’m not referring to visiting your local bank and making a scene because you’re getting charged for service charges that you “Didn’t know about” (Although they’re clearly outlined in the documents that you signed when you opened up your account).

But really though – How many of us really look at the service charges on our account, and then try to strategize ways in which we can reduce those service charges?

I remember that as a kid, when I got my first bank account, I really didn’t know there was a difference between my chequing and savings account. I got a bunch of charges in my chequing account, they closed it down, so I just started using the savings account like “Who cares man”.

Well, I used that savings account, and I used it as much as I could. I was doing like 20 transactions or so per month. One day, I finally decided to check out my bill, and I was getting like $15 in service charges every single month!

I called my bank, and just said “Hey, how can I avoid these service charges?”. The rep closed down that savings account that I had, gave me an actual chequing account, and I was on my way from there.

I’ve compiled a list of a few small things that you can do to actually help you save money through your bank!

• AVOID WITHDRAWALS AT OTHER BANK MACHINES
  This will eat away at your account quickly if you don’t do this. Did you know that you aren’t only charged $1.50 at the machine that you use, but also an additional $1.50 by your bank at the end of the month?

• DON’T MAKE WITHDRAWALS FROM THE MACHINE/PURCHASES AT THE STORE USING YOUR SAVINGS ACCOUNT
  Your savings account probably gives you 2 FREE debit transactions per month. Not only that, but if you make an “Interac Debit Purchase” (Buying something at the store using your savings account), your bank will charge $1.25 IN ADDITION to any fee’s for additional transactions. You could end up paying $2.50 every single time you make a purchase using your savings account!

• TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE PROGRAMS DESIGNED TO HELP YOU
  Been to TD Canada Trust or Scotiabank lately? They have programs that will take 50 cents out everytime you use your chequing account, and transfer it to your savings account. Talk about helping to save for a rainy day!

• IF YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE A LOT OF TRANSACTIONS, UPGRADE YOUR ACCOUNT
  Almost all banks in Canada have some “unlimited transaction” account that’ll cost you just below $13 a month. If you make a lot of transactions, use it! Getting a cheaper account and going over the amount of transactions that your allowed to use will cost you a lot more.

• YOU CARRY A VISA CARD BALANCE? THEN SWITCH OVER TO A LOW-INTEREST RATE CARD
  Your Visa card now is probably charging you 19.99% interest, while you can get a lower rate card that’ll charge you around 12% in interest. Sure the low-rate card will have an annual fee of like $29, but within 3 months, you’ve already saved that amount in interest payments.

I can get into this a lot more, but I’ll save that for another day. This is just something to kind of get your mind going, and thinking about ways that you can save a bit of money. So the next time that you have some extra cash left over, and see me in the club somewhere – buy me a drink man!