Free Banking Tips

This is what 1099 form looks like. Usually banks proactively send this form to customers whenever they are required to file this for taxes. This form is visible also from the official IRS Website- www.irs.gov.

1099 form is the form used to file taxes for Income generated from Checking, Savings, Savings Bond or Even Certificate of Deposits.

You will only have to file this for taxes if the interest earned in an account is at least $10 or more. For example, you have a savings account that earned $8.56 interest prior year and a CD account that earned $9.00, these accounts have more than $10 interest combined together but you no longer have to file this for taxes since it is in per account basis. If you have earned $10 or more in an account, you may also contact your bank to send you form that you need with the complete details of your interest earned.

Now you no longer have to worry that IRS might run after you.

Bank fees are expensive. Some people are moving banks mainly because of Overdrafts and NSF- Non-Sufficient fund fees. That why its important to know what these fees really means so we would know how to avoid them and get away from them.

Some people are thinking that Overdraft fees are Non-sufficient fund fees are the same. Overdraft fee is a very common fee for Americans. These are fees assessed by banks whenever the account goes below zero when a transaction post in an account. These fees are caused by debit card over-usage, chargeback to merchant, merchant error, intentional fraud, unexpected electronic withdrawals, temporary deposit holds, even bank error-in very minimal cases. Overdraft fees are easier to avoid compared to NSF Fees since this are usually caused by small transactions such as Starbucks, 7-Eleven, Walmart or any other store. We just have to control ourselves and avoid using our card whenever we see that we don't have enough funds.

We might be thinking that all the fees that asses in our accounts are Overdraft fees. But, not all fees are overdraft fees but the most uncontrollable fee that can surely give us pain in the ass is the Non-Sufficient Fund Fee. NSF is a term used by banking industry. We get this fee whenever we had a return item. These can be check, automatic draft or ACH, recurring card payment- if the transaction amount is to high (but sometimes still depends on the bank if they ill cover the transaction). People who are use to writing checks are prone to this kind of fee specially when they don't have extra funds to use as buffer in their accounts.  If you know you don't have that buffer then there's no reason for you to miscalculate the account because you will surely get this fee. Overdraft Protection will be very helpful as well since these transaction are unpredictable and can post at any time.Loan payments that usually processed by Loan Sharks are also prone to these kind of fees because these Loan Sharks (that's why they are called loan sharks) will keep on processing your payment off your account even if you have notified them that there's no enough funds to cover.

Now we know the difference between these two fees so it will be more easy for us to avoid them. Its amazing how banks can really get great earnings just because of fees. The best thing we can do now is to manage our account better and be smart in writing checks, making a purchase or processing an automatic draft.

You might have been wondering on how much bank earns each year just plainly from the overdraft fees they charge whenever accounts get into overdraft. We usually end up saying “Oh My God! My bank is killing me with this overdraft!” or maybe we say “nickel and dime is the banks job.”  The worst is we call our bank and we tell them “give my money back!”

Shopping experience at Target has been very amazing. You get anything you need whether its clothes or stroller for your baby, a new bag for yourself, nice watch for your husband and even furniture for your new house. You can even do your groceries for your daily needs. Shopping has never been this great because they got everything you need in the most affordable and at a very reasonable cost. You even get good deals and discounts on some items, specially for groceries.

Did you recently get overdraft or non-sufficient fund fee on your account? If you had, then that might already be because of an ACH. Some people find it jargon but this is almost a common term for those people who use to get bank fees due to this "ACH".

What does ACH means? ACH stand for Automated Clearing House. In US this is the electronic network for financial institutions. Whether you bank with Wells Fargo or Bank of America all your automatic payments is processed and moved by ACH. This is where insurance premium, loan payments and other kinds of utility bills are being processed. Other debit transactions such as recurring card payments are also processed in ACH. If merchants processed your check electronically it means that it was done in ACH. Approximately more than 21 billion ACH transactions with more that $37 trillion total value is being processed in ACH today compared to $31.74 trillion last 2010.

Due to ACH we are able to process our payments easily. The only disadvantage is it can also cause some fees if we miscalculate our balance even for a single dollar or even cent. It takes one to three business days for an ACH to clear yet stopping them is difficult when the payment has already been processed. Stop payments may also help if the request was made in the earliest possible time, though some banks charges fees for stop payment request.

Some banks have already come up with options to help avoid fees due to ACH. Overdraft protection is a good option, You can also check with your bank what other agreements they have to avoid never ending fee.

Acknowledgement:  Automated Clearing House/www. ach.com