I feel very, very lucky that my university has a Credit Union where I opened all of my accounts as an uninformed freshman. The main office is on the ground floor of the student union, and I didn't know any other options--I didn't even know it wasn't a bank. It was only after I had been living on my own for a year that I learned other people had things like checking account fees, outrageous overdraft fees (mine is 75 cents), etc. The savings and CD interests are low, but for tweens who don't know how to manage money the credit union is a godsend.

I switched to free checking in the late 90s. I used to pay $11 a month for the privilege of writing checks at NCNB/Nations Bank/whatever they called themselves after that. I dumped them after they refused to reduce their monthly service charge.

I really feel that teens should be taught the basics of consumer finance in middle or high school.  Like: how exactly do banks make their money on loans?  (Answer: interest on a loan is the "price" of money).  How do you set up a budget?  How do mortgages work?  Why are credit cards good?  Why are they bad?

Kids who learn this stuff at 14 will be much less likely to screw up their finances in their 20s.  And as we all know, if you screw up in your 20s it can take years to dig yourself out of the hole.

Powerful story! I have free checking with my bank, so I'm okay. But I worked as a teller before college, and I had an idea of what to do and not do before school began. There were freebies galore at school, but I didn't go in for them (even though I wanted the free T-shirts). The T-shirts weren't worth $10, let alone $1500!

I think if everyone would stop doing business with these banks that are charging crazy fees like on checking accounts for example when it is obvious not all banks do charge for the same service. We could see a better customer service and perhaps a better paying customer like it use to be when people really paid their bills.

Today banks even will charge you to cash a check someone wrote to you on their bank and that is where you are trying to cash the check. If you don't have an account at the same back as the check is written on you have to pay $5.oo to get them to cash the check. This is unfair practices. We need to stand up to these banks by not doing business with them. Boycott those banks that do this type of business and see how they like that.

This is the only way we can stop banks from charging such fees. Together we can make a difference.

This post makes a good point about checking fees and credit unions. But the really great points had to do with how we make purchasing decisions and where we go from there.

It's easy to write off J.D.s decision about the frisbee as a foolish choice made by someone barely out of high school, but it seems we all lose our objectivity once in awhile when confronted with a freebie or coupons.

And how many marketing ploys are built upon the inertia J.D. showed when he kept the account active for many years? Certainly every "free 30 day trial" (that requires a CC up front for "convenience") makes this assumption. I once paid for a travel service subscription that went unused for a few years before I cancelled it.

You're a moron if you paid that fee for an account you didnt even use for 17 years. Banks love morons.

Ha! Great post. This reminds me of the classic Joy of Tech comic...

iPhone or  Millionaire?

www.geekculture.com/.../1125.html

What is truly sad about all of this is that your parents didn't prepare you for such a thing.  I'm not knocking your parents.  My parents were the same way.  As are most parents.  Finances are difficult and most people would rather just shove that aspect of their lives into a drawer and forget about them.  So they never pass along their "experience".  And their kids really don't want to hear it either.  It's really really sad if you think about it.  

How many college students have literally been "robbed" because they were just not prepared?  I was robbed.  Fortunately, my wife was not and she educated me.  And we will definitely be educating our children.  I suggest you do the same with yours.  Because if you don't, some bank will rob them!

Start them early with their own bank account, that is free.  Make it a joint account so you can send them money when they are in College.  Teach them to never take no for an answer.  If you can't get a free account, then take the money and find another bank.  But teach your kids how to handle money early and they will repay you later in life by not mooching off of you because they made bad decisions.

Sorry, but your argument is BS and not financially sound. First of all you did receive a service. that is, you did used your account. You could have receive a similar service for free, perhaps, but assigning all that opportunity cost to the frisbee is not fair. The calculation is also wrong. If you paid 8$ a month for a frisbee for 17 years, at a interest rate of 8%, that would only be 513.27$ in value the day you bought the frisbee, a lot for a frisbee for sure, but far from 1500$.