In this week’s Your Money column, which I wrote with the Bucks stalwart Ann Carrns, we look at the question of why banks don’t let you know the average monthly balance in your bank account, even when they’re using that number to figure out what fees to charge you.

For the increasing number of you who are running up against some sort of account minimum that is required to keep free checking, how are you handling it?

Are you watching the balance like a hawk to stay just a tad above it? Or are you putting a bunch of money in the account so you don’t have to watch it at all?

We don’t mention in the column the possibility of simply switching banks, though with 45 percent of big institutions still offering free checking on noninterest-bearing accounts, that’s certainly a possibility. Banks count, however, on the fact that you will be too lazy to do that, or feel so tethered in by automated payments that you can’t bear the thought of untangling everything.

So what moves have you made of late with your checking account?

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=c314c2f58c78d52d3034335a325ff27e