Convenience Fees Make Me Angry

I apologize in advance that this is more of a rant than a blog post but....

I HATE CONVENIENCE FEES!

Bank of America holds my mortgage and for me to pay my bill online, they just instituted a $3 online transaction fee. Ugh. I purchased concert tickets to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary last month and was charged a $10 convenience fee from LiveNation. Double ugh. If you have less than a $5 at some restaurants that you'd like to put on your credit card, they charge you 50 cents! All these little annoying additions to what you're already spending add up, and I don't like it. Not at all.

For the most part, I can avoid convenience fees. I can mail my mortgage payment, I can avoid purchasing from places that charge for minimum purchases (or carry cash, but you know how that goes for me), and I can get cash from my bank's ATM instead of getting charged double if I use another bank's.

But it's just really, really annoying.

Does anyone else despise convenience fees? What one do you find most annoying? Do you pay them so life's easier or do you do things the hard way to save some bucks?

The Art of Happiness with Your Bank

Are you happy with your banking? Have you even asked yourself that question? I did recently, and I'm not. And I'm not alone. Among the consumers who bank at the Big 4 (Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo), most banks averaged around 70% customer satisfaction. Honestly, I was surprised it was that high! Between horrible customer service if you ever run into a problem to fees for everything to very low interest rates (although they aren't entirely to blame), I have a case of the bank blues.

As I was going through my mail the other day, I noticed a letter from ING Direct and decided to check them out. Their interest rates are double that of my current bank for a savings account! ING Direct is purely online - they don't have any branches - so depositing and transferring money is all done via the internet, phone or mail. But the good news is they pass what they don't spend on brick-and-mortar locations to you!

Although I ended up signing up for an account with them, I'm not saying you should. What I am saying is you should think about taking a few minutes to evaluate if your money is working as hard in your bank accounts as you think it should be. How do you know? Well, if you sign up for Mint.com, it automatically shows you how you could be saving money and exactly how much you'd save over the course of a year! If you aren't signed up with Mint, I'd suggest checking out your local credit union, smaller regional banks, or online banks, like ING Direct or Ally. What was the satisfaction with "other" banks (i.e. those I just listed)? Over 80 percent!

Are you happy with your banking situation? Have you recently moved your money?