Painless but you're still bleeding out!

I see these commercials all the time now. So many banks on TV offering a sort of automatic savings plan linked to your checking account and check card usage frequency. The same check cards these same banks now plan to charge monthly fees for use. How do these work? Generally they round up the dollar amount on a transaction and transfer the difference to your savings. Or they transfer a dollar from your checking to savings account each time you use your card. Sounds convenient, even good right? Building savings without thinking too much about it. This is what some would call a painless way to save.

With most every bank deciding to charge a monthly fee for using your check card, chances are those savings will come in real handy at the end of each month. Assuming you remember to keep track of all these added deductions from your checking account with each instance of card use and you won't miss those extra dollars and cents when you need to pay one more bill. Basically this is no way to save for people who really need savings, those who may be living paycheck to paycheck and have to pay very close attention to how they spend their money each month. Yet, these are the people who are targeted here in these commercials. If you aren't watching these little deductions being drafted from your checking account you may find that you've saved simply to pay overdraft fees. Those cents add up quickly which is why this seems like such a good idea to save. It's the same reason why gas prices always have the .009 cent at the end. Those fractions add up faster than you expect.

If you are lucky enough to make this work for you though, and find a way to actually save, congratulations! Now your bank wants the rest of your money for themselves too. Maybe you're saving enough to pay their monthly check card fees. What? That's not what you were hoping to spend your savings on? You could stop using your check card, but you have to use it for the savings plan to work for you. So plan to pay for the convenience of using your check card, in order to save a little each month. Plan on deducting that monthly fee from your monthly savings. That seems circular to me. Painless? About as painless ass, I don't know, not saving? Maybe I need the pain of saving the old fashioned way because it seems the banks are the only ones who really benefit... certainly painless for them.

-Konscious Vybz
"The possession of power unavoidably spoils the free use of reason."
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