Another thing to be cautious about -- and not many people know this until they've been hit with it. Don't use your savings account for overdraft protection. The Federal Reserve has in place rules that if in any given 12 month period of time, you have 3 months where there are more than 6 transactions taking money OUT of your savings account, the Federal Reserve REQUIRES the bank to close the savings account. I found this out to my great dismay several weeks ago when my savings account was closed by the bank for excess transactions.

I had my mortgage and condominium dues automatically deducted from the savings account (that's 2 right there) each month, and then 3 times in 12 months I had some overdrafts that were covered by the savings account. Too bad, so sad. Bam. The savings account was closed and the balance transferred to my checking account.

The banks sell you on this "overdraft protection" but don't tell you that if you do use it for the purpose intended the Fed will force them to close the account. It's one of those little gotcha's that they don't tell you about.

And yes, each of those overdrafts was caused by me - and forgetting to write down the debit card transaction. I take the blame for the OD -0- but not knowing about the excess transaction rule, that's the bank's fault.

And interestingly enough, when the savings account (or any other account really) is used to cover an overdraft, you still get charged a fee. Currently Wells Fargo is charging $34 for overdrafts, and $11 for automatic overdraft protection "fee" per overdraft.

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