Just realized my 'emergency cash only' experiment backfired when the bodega on 14th Street charged me a $3 fee to use their ATM

I tried paying only with cash for a month to save money, but that ATM fee plus the $2.50 surcharge from my own bank ate up all my savings in just three weeks, so has anyone else found that cash actually costs more than plastic?

2 comments

2 Comments

elliot4527d ago

Hang on, a $3 fee just to use their ATM? That's insane, I've never seen that high of a charge anywhere. Most places around here cap out at like $1.50 or $2 tops. And then your own bank hitting you with another $2.50 on top of that? So you're paying $5.50 just to get your own money out. That's basically a losing game from the start. The whole point of using cash is to avoid fees, not pile them on. No wonder your savings got wiped out in three weeks, you were basically paying a tax just to access your own cash.

reesemiller27d ago

Yeah @elliot45 nailed it, you're getting double hit with those fees and that defeats the whole purpose. Best trick I found is to get cash back when you buy something small at a grocery store, most places don't charge a fee for that and you avoid the ATM surcharge completely.