Decades ago, before we were married, my then-boyfriend would get hit wth an overdraft at least once a month. AFTER we got married, he bounced three checks and I put my foot down (three strikes and you’re out, sweetheart!) and we opened a joint savings account with no ATM cards tied to it. Just having the bank account be mostly in-only and tightening up on the spending - since we had to go to the bank and make a withdrawal if we wanted money for shopping - got through to him once we went a year with no debt and no fees. If we didn’t have the cash on-hand, we went without. 35 years later, it’s second nature to not be spending money… At least 3 days a week we both go without a single purchase of anything. Not even a cup of coffee.
Good on ya!
I used to be like that too. My SO helped me get over that habit. I really wish we were taught the basics of this kinda stuff in school…
Americans used to be taught it…
I had to take Home Economics in 7th grade (this was in 1977-78) and we would learn how to plan meals and cook them, food safety, how to iron a shirt and sew a button back on, how to balance a checkbook and budget monthly household expenses and also there was a smattering of sex ed topics.
I was blase on it at the time, but it did stick and now I wish it was still taught with the emphasis on budgeting and money like it used to be.
I guess that Americans aren’t supposed to know how to avoid debt.
I guess that Americans aren’t supposed to know how to avoid debt.
Of course not, that’s kinda the point of our financial system.
I had half a semester of ‘home econ’ in my seinor year of High School ~2000. We didn’t really cover much that was useful for actually balancing a checkbook. The class was clearly a checkbox that they didn’t actually expect us to do anything in.
Why do you all still bank with these low lives? I haven’t had an overdraft fee in like 20 years. There are banks all over the place with no minimum balance and no overdraft fees.
I’m a weird case where my bank account is so old it precedes all these fees and minimum balance requirements.
As long as I have a single cent in my account it’s completely free which I suppose you could call a minimum balance requirement but compared to other banks where you need a minimum of like $100-500 it’s pretty nice
There was a recent AI post about creating an AI that would rob banks automatically. You’re not to blame, you just created it. It alone robbed the banks. It just so happened that you knew where it kept the money. And sorry if It was your money before. Finders keepers I guess.
The number here seems to be incorrect, the Financial Health Network estimated $12.1 billion of overdraft and insufficient funds fees for 2024, and I don’t see estimates for 2025 yet.
I also see that ~20 million households paid at least one overdraft or NSF fees in 2024, which means the average household hit by a fee paid $600 over the course of the year.
I spent hundreds on overdraft fees during my college years. When people say that being poor is expensive, this is one of the major points they’re talking about.
Overdraft is an optional feature. Just opt out.
Sadly most people who pay those fees have no idea that’s how it works.
It should be opted out by default. A customer should have to opt in to the “feature”.
That doesnt seem like that much given the population and its an entire year.
I’m not sure where the tweet is getting it’s figures.
For context though I did find this article on Motley Fool
In 2025, 12% of Americans paid an overdraft fee. Those charges, which cost $35 per incident on average, can quickly snowball into financial stress. Even as some banks eliminate overdraft fees, revenue from those and similar fees was nearly $6 billion in 2023
- **Low-income earners drive overdraft fees:**23% of those earning less than $25,000 and 20% of those earning $25,000 to $49,999 were hit with an overdraft fee, compared to 6% of those earning $150,000 or more
So some quick math.
The census bureau put the US population at 336,815,549 in 2023.
12% of that is roughly 40M people who paid about $6B.
$6B / 40M gives an average overdraft fee of $150. Where 43% of those having to pay earned less than $50k per year.
So the numbers in the tweet dont quite match up to what I found, but the overall sentiment of banks making a lot of money from poor people not having money seems to roughly pan out.
Tbf, overdrafting is spending money you dont have. If you overdraft and the bank lets you spend money you dont have, do you think theyre just gonna do you a solid there? They let you spend money you didnt actually have. Thats a service, like credit, and one that tends to come at a cost even though some banks dont charge for it.
To call a bank charging for an offered service “robbing you” is pretty ridiculous. There are banks that dont charge a fee. Bank with them. There are banks that wont let you overdraft at all. Bank with them. No one is robbing anyone by covering for them when they spend money they dont have. They told you what it costs to do so. You still did it. Thats not remotely similar to ripping people off in any way
You can have the money and still be charged overdraft fees.
Consider multiple accounts under one number, all set up to transfer money between them for free and with no limits. But once you spend from an account without enough funds allocated, then that money transfer will cost money, usually $30-40.
Real life application: When a medical biller uses the wrong card on file they can rack you up some hefty charges before you know it, and the bank usually only forgives one fee, not the eleven extra ones the biller triggered by making separate, itemized charges.
All the bank was doing was moving the money from a savings account with the same number, and then charging a fee for that. And only a bank can charge and collect in one action.
I dismantled the automatic transfer system that had been set up since it was just a fee scam. Now payments just fail if I haven’t allocated the money to the debit account.
But it’s still a scam, even if you consider benevolent credit extensions. Extending this credit is not costing them $30-40 per transaction. Walmart can just write off thefts of under $20, for tangental context.
“You don’t have any money but still need to eat? Skill issue.”
- You
For one, Ive literally starved before rather than overdraft my card. It was good motivation to never allow myself to be in that position again.
For two, the vast majority of people that regularly overdraft their card every two weeks (as in the people making these banks the majority of this money) earn plenty of money and make shit financial decisions that they dont need to make. They arent starving. In the last few years I have known several people that overdraft their card before every payday by hundreds of dollars just so they can buy shit that is nothing close to a necessity.
But yeah keep pretending that every overdrafter is a starving mother of 12 and that no bank account holder could ever do anything that should earn them a penalty
Keep pretending these people don’t exist. But I understand, you had to harden yourself in order to survive and it has killed your empathy. Along the lines you have “learned” what capitalism has teached us since we are children: everyone is responsible for their own luck AND misery. Don’t worry though, its gonna be the downfall of that “great” nation.
Why would a bank let us spend money that isn’t ours to spend to begin with? Sounds like banks suck
Do you realize how incredibly easy it is to overdraft? Most people don’t want to overdraft, they would rather have the card decline. But banks don’t make easy money that way, so you have to opt out of automatic overdraft. If regulators made it so that transactions must be automatically declined if there aren’t sufficient funds and someone needs to opt in to being able to overdraft, overdraft fees would go way down.
tbf - no. fuck overdraft fees. just deny the transaction. there. done.
My bank had an overdraft loan thing, where you could qualify ahead of time for a $1,000 loan, and pay 16% interest annually if you overdrafted by less than that. That worked out to about $13 for a month, and it would protect you from getting hit with another overdraft right away. They ended that program (but you can back your checking account with your savings account now).
Lots of other banks will reorder your transactions in a day to maximize the number of overdraft fees you pay, even if you set alerts for it, so you get a text as soon as the first one happens.
Most banks are not trying to provide a useful service to you with overdraft protection. (It is still better than the way it used to work)
everyone i know who suffered overdraft fees was an idiot with their money. they spend everything they made, often before their paycheck even came.
but they will argue with you for hours how it isn’t their fault rather than… spend hours budgeting or managing their money better.
and people on lemmy argue with you the banks conspire and force people to buy clothes/food/vacations they don’t need, but really really wanted.
my favorite line was always ‘i have a right live a little’. yeah Janice… excep twhen I ‘live a little’ a buy a $5 coffee or a $50 dinner once in a while, not a $5000 trip to Iceland… and we both make the same salary… and please tell me more how ‘privileged’ i am because I’m not blowing $5000 on 5 day trip, when you only have $2000 in your bank account…
it’s an idiot tax on those who can’t do math and those who can’t live without instant gratification.
