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"The days of quaint savings passbooks (remember those?) and a free toaster for opening a new checking account are gone. Now you&amp;#039;re more likely to manage your savings online and get billed when you open a checking account. With all the new fees, regulations, and teeny interest rates on savings, banking has become confusing and costly. Let me shed some light on a few of your most common banking questions \u2014 and help you keep more of your hard-earned cash. I&amp;#039;m relieved that my bank isn&amp;#039;t charging for my debit card usage, but I&amp;#039;m still seeing all kinds of fees on my monthly statements. What gives?  Would you believe that numerous banks have as many as 49 possible fees for checking accounts? And many have raised monthly fees to an average that&amp;#039;s creeping close to $15 \u2014 ouch! So review your monthly bank statements now and see what you&amp;#039;re being charged for. It&amp;#039;s becoming increasingly common to pay fees for such transactions as making a transfer or payment over the phone. And some banks charge $3 for using an out-of-network ATM; plus, that ATM may well debit you another $3 for the privilege of accessing the cash. Fortunately, there are no-fee banking options out there \u2014 and tools to help you shop for them. For example, Ally Bank offers a free online checking account that requires no minimum balance and allows you to deposit checks online (you scan the check and send it electronically) for no additional charge. There are no ATM fees, either. And ING Direct USA has free checking accounts that even earn interest (every little bit counts). Scour bank reviews (ratings on customer service, fees, etc.) at mybanktracker.com \u2014 and don&amp;#039;t rule out credit unions, which have some of the lowest checking fees around and are more likely to offer lower-interest loans and credit cards. You can look for credit unions at the National Credit Union Administration website, ncua.gov. I&amp;#039;ve saved some cash for an emergency fund, but it earns hardly any interest in my savings account. Could it do better elsewhere? Remember the days of earning 4.5% on our savings accounts? Well, don&amp;#039;t hold your breath for that to happen again soon. The Federal Reserve, which determines many interest rates, has said it&amp;#039;ll hold the line at or close to 0% at least through 2013. Banks will keep interest rates just as low \u2014 great for loans and credit cards, but bad for savings. Still, you might as well try to offset the cost of inflation and earn just a tad on your moola. Shop around for savings accounts with some yield \u2014 online banks and credit unions offer 1% or thereabouts \u2014 at sites like bankrate.com. And keep in mind that if your checking and savings accounts are with the same bank, you may be able to link them for a larger, combined balance, thereby avoiding low-balance fees on your checking account. You could wind up a couple of hundred dollars richer in a year thanks to that one simple move. Next:   My bank sends me balance-transfer checks in the mail all the time lately. Is a transfer a smart move, or should I worry about how it might take my credit score down a notch or two? You, too, huh? I&amp;#039;ve been amazed at the number of balance-transfer offers arriving in my mailbox (not to mention my e-mail inbox!). Not only can these checks be used to transfer a balance from a higher-rate credit card to one with a low- or no-interest offer, but they also can be used as cash for your own needs: If you&amp;#039;re carrying a balance on your card and working hard to pay it off, these deals can save you lots in interest payments. Say you&amp;#039;re carrying a balance of $3,500 on a card that charges 17% interest. Moving that balance to a card with a 0% offer (that is, assuming you have great credit and qualify for that rate) means saving more than $300 in interest if you take a year to pay it off. But before you sign up, remember that the offers can only be used within a certain time frame, and many have balance-transfer fees of 3% to 5% of the amount being moved, which may make the offer less enticing. And if you are 60 days late with your payments, the lender has the option of raising your rate with only 45 days&amp;#039; notice. Another tip: When you transfer a balance to take advantage of a 0% offer, avoid charging new items on that credit card. For many cards, if you read the fine print, you&amp;#039;ll see that new transactions will be billed at a much higher interest rate. As for your credit score, if this is an offer from an existing account, you&amp;#039;re in effect moving debt from one place to another, not taking on new debt. Not so bad. But if you&amp;#039;re transferring $3,000 from a card with a $15,000 limit to a card with only a $5,000 limit and then you close the $15,000 card, you may lose points due to a high debt-utilization ratio. Translation: You&amp;#039;re getting too close to your spending limit. Specifically, you are going from using just 20% of your available credit to using 67%. Really, anything over 10% utilization may ding your credit score. That said, if you do want to shop around for balance-transfer offers, head to bankrate.com and credit.com to review the latest deals. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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