I’ve always heard that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.  Neither, it seems, are free checking accounts all that common.

We do our banking through a credit union rather than a bank simply because it was as close to “free” as we could find here in our area.  The place we used to patronize started out as a savings and loan, and yes, they actually offered free checking — so long as we had a separate savings account with a nominal minimum balance.  That was cool.

But then, the S&L was sold — first to one bank, then to another.  The next thing we knew, our savings account was drained through a dizzying number of service charges.  It seemed like we were paying THEM interest to use our money!

Ditto for the checking account.  Since we only had the bare basic “safety paper” checks, they had always been free, but then, the new owners decided we should pay for them — plus hand over a “per check” charge.  Needless to say, we left as soon as we could find a better alternative, which didn’t take very long at all.

The credit union makes us buy our checks, but we earn interest on our account balance, and aside from ATM charges (they have NO cash machines of their own!), we’re free of those infernal carrying charges.  But I’m thinking about just opening an online account where everything is REALLY free.  Hey, we all need to save however we can!