Money-Saving Tip: Check your bank's alternative fees

I hate paying fees to the bank. The only one I don't have a problem with is my safety deposit box, since I'm getting a tangible service (i.e., the use of the box). But since I know the bank makes money off of my deposits, I do just about everything possible to avoid paying any kind of penalty or service fee. But some fees are unavoidable.

A while back, I had to stop payment on one of the few paper checks I still write each month. I hated the thought of paying a fee to do it, but the stop payment had to be done. Since I do most of my banking online, I looked up the fee and discovered that there were two different fees listed. One was for initiating a stop payment via online banking. It was $10 lower than initiating a stop payment via any other method. So although I had to pay a fee to the bank, at least I was able to minimize it.