You will be surprised at what these 5 stellar strategies reveal. We share secrets with you that bring you hidden savings by avoiding hidden costs. So let’s shake that money tree!

(1) No More Checking Account Fees : We have found that it is very likely if you have more than one account at your Bank, that if you go in person (don’t just call Customer Service via the phone) and ask to speak to an Account Representative, one of the women or men who have a desk, (not a teller) you can negotiate to waive your monthly service fees for your checking accounts. Another method that has worked successfully at some banks is to set-up an automatic monthly transfer from your checking to your savings and that will negotiate a waive of service fees. As the adage goes—”It never hurts to ask”—you may be pleasantly surprised at how much negotiation power you hold!

(2) Ring! Ring! Cha-ching! Goodbye to your long-distance service? Well, you can have your cake and it too—like many people you probably don’t make a lot of long-distance calls, but you do make some. Even if you don’t make a lot of long-distance phone calls, if you currently have a long-distance phone service you are probably paying monthly automatic billing fees just for having the service! Consider swapping it for prepaid Calling Cards which can be less expensive for long-distance and international calls. Look into Sam’s Club’s prepaid calling cards or Costco’s. Take a look at the “PennyTalk” Calling Card too http://www.PennyTalk.com (Toll-Free Telephone #1-888-311-2629). Alternatively, check out the internet service Skype http://www.Skype.com.


(3) The True Cost Of A Message: Check you cell phone service plan, you are probably paying high costs for the ability to send and receive instant messages—instant messaging (IM). You may be one of the many people who don’t even use this function, or who use it, but don’t think the value of the cost is worth having the function, especially if you get a lot of unsolicited TM’s (text messages), in other words spam text messages.

If you do want text messaging then get it for FREE! Check out http://www.txt2day.com/

In addition, with accelerated technological advances there are products that maybe available soon to offset the costs of instant messaging, such as reports of Apple Inc.’s having plans for a universal instant messaging application for their iPhone.

(4) Coins To Cash: Sure we love that great tip of collecting your loose change (your coins) in a container and then after several weeks or months exchanging it for cash dollars that many of you write us about. So far we have accounts from some people with as much as $900. in loose change!

Yes, it is a good tip because not only does it illustrate the power of a penny saved and how quickly they add up. For example, if you save ¢.50 cents a day in loose change that is $15.00 per month, which is more savings than you would have had and that is only ¢.50 cents a day, imagine what you could have with a little more set aside! It also is a great way to channel that money to a particular purpose. For example maybe you earmark that money toward your savings, or a larger fund for investments, or a particular necessity.

But the mistake that we see many folks make is that they take their coins to one of those automatic machines. You know, those machines you see at the supermarkets that count coins. In general those machines charge you, in other words cost you 8 9/10 cents for each dollar of coins the machine counts. At first look that may not seem like a lot, but let’s remember what you just experienced about the power of a penny, we can put our “Good Cents” towards better use! For example, if you take $40. in loose change to the machine, it will cost you $3.56—for $40.00—leaving you with $36.44.

Instead, turn your coins to cash for free (and it’s fun) go to your local bank and ask for free paper coin rolls in the denomination that you need (1, 5, 10, 25 cents), then roll-up those coins and they give you your cash—100% of it as they should.

Alternatively, ask your bank what days of the week they offer the coin machine service, where you take your loose coins (the coins don’t need to be rolled into the paper-covered rolls) they pour your coins into their machine and then it is automatically counted and they give you the equivalent in paper cash—all 100% of your money—free, no-charge.

(5) Are You Paying To Withdraw Your Own Money? In order to give you a definition to begin with, we like this from Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/): ” ATM usage fees are the fees many banks and interbank networks charge for the use of their Automated Teller Machines (ATMs). In some cases, these fees are assessed solely for non-members of the bank; in other cases, they apply to all users. Two types of consumer charges exist: the surcharge and the foreign fee. The surcharge fee may be imposed by the ATM owner (the deployer or Independent sales organization) and will be charged to the consumer using the machine. The foreign fee or transaction fee is a fee charged by the card issuer (financial institution, stored value provider) to the consumer for conducting a transaction outside of their network of machines in the case of a financial institution.”

What’s the bottom line you ask?

Many banks are charging you $3.00 per withdrawal from an ATM, and that doesn’t even count the fee that the organization that owns the machine charges you, or the fee that you are charged (typically $1. to $2. more) by your own bank for using a machine that is not affiliated with their bank. In other words, let’s say you have a checking account at The ABC BANK (a fake name of course for the purpose of this report) but you withdraw some cash from a bank where you do not have any accounts The XYZ Bank (another fake name for the purpose of this report) then you can potentially get charged by both banks. That means if you are withdrawing $20.00, you can be spending as much as $5.00 to withdraw your own money! That leaves you with just $15.00!

By the way, if you live in the United States and travel to another country, those fees can even be higher!

By The Secrets For Money Team

© Copyright 2008 by Secrets For Money™

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