How to Find the Best Checking Account

With record numbers of fraud and identity theft being reported every year, keeping on top of your personal finances is more important than ever before. But how many of us are really aware of our personal financial situation on a day-to-day basis? For those of us who are new to banking, or those of us who never really had the time or motivation to learn how to properly keep track of our spending, we offer these videos to answer questions you might have about maintaining your checking account.

In this series of free video clips you'll learn tips on maintaining your personal finances from an expert financial services representative. Summer Dye offers advice on opening a checking account, helping you determine what kind of account is right for you, what personal information you should put on your checks. She then takes you step-by-step through the entire process of balancing your checkbook, from gathering together the supplies you'll need to get started, using you check register or ledger, to reading and understanding you bank statement, comparing it with your records, and dealing with outstanding check, banking discrepancies and fraud. Watch these free videos and avoid those predictable pitfalls of personal finance by staying aware of your financial status at all times.

"Hi! This is Summer on behalf of expertvillage.com in this clip we’re going to be going over on how to choose a checking account. It seems easy enough however, there’s numerous financial institutions out there and you want to make sure you’re picking one that best suits your needs. So what I recommend doing is going out to different banks and credit unions in your area and collecting information on those different banks and credit unions and what kind of services they offer, you also want to make sure that they include a fee sheet so that you can compare who offers lower fees and you want to stick with the financial institution that has the lower fees. Also you want to find out if they offer debit cards and if there’s a charge for those debit cards, you want to find out if they offer online banking so you can view your account online and there’s many financial institutions out there that don’t charge for online banking so you want to make sure you find one that doesn’t. You also want to check to see if they offer some sort of overdraft protection for your checking account, this could come in the form of a loan product that’s used to transfer money into your checking account when you need it or also some banks offer a credit card that’s used as overdraft protection, so if you need money in your checking account it would automatically transfer from that credit card. So those are a couple of basic things you want to look for when you’re choosing a checking account and make sure you find one that has low fees, offers online banking for free and offer some sort of overdraft protection source in emergencies or if there’s a discrepancy in your checking account you won’t get charged extra fees for bouncing checks, so those are the basic things you want to look for when you’re choosing a checking account."