[Tia Maria]

As the title says, share your tips for avoiding bank charges! :nice1

Mine are for ASB but may apply to other banks:

1) Withdraw cash from ASB cashpoints only, ($0.50 to use other cashpoints)

2) We use our credit card whenever we can, (we always pay fully each month), this allows us to collect True Rewards points which can then be used to pay for bank charges, insurance and other things.

Cheers

Tia

[IanW99]

...
2) We use our credit card whenever we can, (we always pay fully each month), this allows us to collect True Rewards points which can then be used to pay for bank charges, insurance and other things.

Cheers

Tia

If you always pay your ASB credit card in full each month, have you asked ASB to pay this for you automatically?

It's very easy to do, they never forget it, and it's done at the very last second so that you keep your money in your account earning interest. You can also cancel this arrangement at any time should the need arise.

So my tip would be to set up an automatic payment of your credit card.

Ian

[kanatakiwi]

As the title says, share your tips for avoiding bank charges! :nice1


2) We use our credit card whenever we can, (we always pay fully each month), this allows us to collect True Rewards points which can then be used to pay for bank charges, insurance and other things.

Cheers

Tia

good tips. Thanks. And you can convert your True Rewards points to Airpoints for Air NZ, thereby accumulating points more quickly for that big trip!
Gloria

[Milliemoo]

I treat the ASB True Reward points as cash back, by using the banking redemptions multiple times.

1 point = $1

There's nothing to stop you redeeming the 'True Rewards Fee Rebate' option for R10 ($10) as many times as you like.

I've had $100's 'cash back' this way since we took at the card. Now that just goes to show ho much we spend on the card :p but it's OK if you pay it back in full each month.

Milliemoo

[marcia]

If you have cheques to pay into your account, try and use the 'envelope' service in the bank rather than going to the counter - I hadn't realised it was an extra $3 to do this till the lady on the counter told me - again this is with ASB and may vary depending on your account.

Also opt for being 'paperless' not having monthly statments sent out saves money too!

[Silverwing86]

We also pay everything with Credit Card (pay off each month in full as well, automatically as Ian suggested) and last year (when it was still possible to get rebates on your ASB insurances with True Rewards) we got $ 300 back on our ASB insurance costs. Definitely a great way to save money !

Unfortunately they don't do that anymore :no, but we still use the True Rewards to get rebates on our Credit Card fees. I also find it very pleasing to pay for things like books (Whitcoulls) and clothes (Farmers) with True Rewards.

[Tia Maria]

For various reasons, we originally had our mortgage and current account with two different banks, when it was time to renew we pitted them off against each other and managed to get the lowest mortgage rate from the bank we had our main account with.

So not only did we get a lower rate, but we also stopped paying monthly bank fees for 2 banks.

Tip - only for those organised with their money!

We changed some of our mortgage to a revolving credit one, this is where they combine your current account and your mortgage.

This means that any savings automatically decrease the loan amount, so you not only pay less loan interest but you also don't pay tax on any bank interest you may have earned in a standard current/savings account.

But, only use this kind of account if you are willing to track your money carefully and not be tempted to spend what you have paid off!

Cheers

Tia