As consumers, we try our hardest to save money as often as we can. Whether we are shopping, investing or just plain putting our money in the bank, we want to make sure that we get the most for our money – so how come the one place where we are supposed to earn money is the place that winds up taking the most of it?

Think about it, on average, banks take more of our money than they give us for keeping it there. Why they do this – and more importantly – why they are allowed to get away with this – is beyond me. All I know is that I would rather keep my money in a piggy bank than a savings bank.

Let me ask you a question. If you have a checking or savings account, isn’t there some kind of fee taken out for almost everything you do and hardly anything given back? I remember when I was very young, my mother took me to the bank with her. When I looked at the interest rate for the bank’s savings account – it was 16%. Today, you are lucky if you get 3%. Yet, while rates to keep your money in the bank have gone down – the rates to use your money have gone up.

When I used to have a checking account a number of years ago, I would get charged a few bucks a month, have my cancelled checks sent to me with my monthly statement, and my ATM transactions were free. Today, you can’t get your checks back anymore, you are charged a fee if you don’t keep the “required minimum balance” – which is usually a grillion dollars – and you get charged anywhere from three to five bucks every time you use the ATM – tell me again why we keep our money in banks?

I realize that in today’s society, you can’t survive without a bank account. But perhaps someone should let these banks know that if they keep taking our money instead of saving it for us – they won’t have any customers left to take money from.