In a surprise report, apparently, even though we are still experiencing the effects of a long and protracted recession here in the US, a nd the jobless rate seems to be unmovable, citizens, as well as companies, are stockpiling cash and increasing their net worth.

The problem with companies doing this though, is that instead of hiring more people and increasing the average household’s spending power, they are actually contributing to the economy’s problems by adding another chink in the armor of joblessness.

They are not hiring people, instead they are still nervously sitting on oodles of cash, apparently waiting for some sign from above that everything is indeed going to be all right.

Well, everything is going to be all right, if history has taught us anything, so the sooner these CEO’s get their head out of the clouds, the faster the economy can recover and the real driver behind economic growth – jobs and spending – can really commence.

In addition to corporations sitting on more cash, it seems that the average American citizen is also trying to squirrel away more cash in case of uncertain times. We humans are funny that way, burn us once and we don’t forget for a LONG time.

A lot of people lost a good portion of their life savings in their 401k’s and other savings accounts for retirement when the stock market took a dive several times in 2008.

Many never recovered that money because in a panic, they sold, and created a permanent loss for themselves instead of getting the benefit fo the bounce back to profitability in the recent bull market run that has seemed so improbably to so many financial analysts as of late.

Now, people are starting to spend their money, but still cautiously. They are more concerned with rebuilding their wealth, and that shows in the numbers of amount of savings that the average American has now, versus just a few years ago before the crash and ensuing chaos came.

Saving money is extremely important to your financial future and success. Many people don’t realize this, and they literally spend more than they make. Instead of putting away any excess cash they have, they actually spend that money and then some, putting themselves into deeper high interest credit card debt and other types of negative equity situations.

It’s the typical problem about the idea that we have to have material goods here and now. Instead, what people should be practicing is something called delayed gratification. Instead of putting a deck on our house now, which I know we could do with a line of credit on our house, for example, we are choosing to delay this project in favor of paying off high interest debt first, and also of saving for your future in tax deferred instruments like 401k’s and IRA’s.

This way, we are actually paying ourselves first instead of dumping money into something that isn’t really paying us. Probably the single most important factor in saving money is keeping it “out of sight, out of mind”. This means that your money comes right out of your paycheck and into a savings account, automatically, with no interference from you. With this method, it’s automatic, and you don’t even think about it or have a chance to spend it before it’s deposited into an interest bearing account.

401k’s and similar work-savings for retirement programs work this way. They simply draft the money right out of your paycheck, thereby reducing your taxable income by that much, and you don’t even see that money in your paycheck, it’s just automatically gone, into an account that pays you interest, dividends, and whatever other capital your account happens to appreciate by depending on your investment choices.

You can also do this with different types of savings accounts too, if you want to have say an extra fund set up for emergencies or for something bigger that you want to save up for that you don’t want to pay for on credit. Sharebuilder and other online savings, banking and investment services, have bank accounts that you can set up this way, or your local bank can often draft money directly from your paycheck into a savings account, so you don’t even have to think about it on a monthly or bimonthly basis. ‘

This sure beat the old money between the mattresses trick, where it’s as easy and going over to pull some cash out for temptation’s sake, and you’re not earning a penny in interest!

When it comes to bank’s competitiveness in convenience and value for your money, there may not be a whole lot of competition between the little and big guys. What I mean here is that the bigger banks with a million branches versus the small, more localized banks with perhaps the less sophisticated ATMs and online banking protocols, may not offer the savings account holder more value when it comes to actually giving them a higher yield on their savings accounts.

So far, from what I’ve seen, this sentiment has rung true. I actually switched over to a larger, more widespread bank, and although I enjoy the (pretty much) fee free accounts and the wide access to branches pretty much every where I go within the contiguous US states, I don’t enjoy as high of a savings interest rate than I did at my former, beloved bank with the savings account.

I think that when making the decision between banks, you really have to look at what your largest goals are. In other words, is saving your biggest goal, and building on that savings? Or is convenience and accessibility a bigger deal to you? If both matter, you certainly may want to even consider going with one larger bank for your checking and business account needs, and going with the smaller local bank with higher savings account yields for your savings account.

After all, savings accounts are built on the idea that you will rarely access them, so do you really need to have ready access to them as you may get at a larger bank 24/7? Or are you more interested in building on your capital and better keeping pace with inflation when it comes to your money?

The thing is, larger, more widespread banks have a lot more money to spend when it comes to building new branches, having more sophisticated and user friendly technology, online banking and ATM’s, and other amenities, but they really don’t have a huge financial incentive in offering their savings customers larger yields on their savings accounts.

For this reason, you really may want to consider going with two different banks. Only thing is, you may want to watch what types of fees you are being charged with the bank you opened your savings with, since banks often use “bundling” to determine whether you will be charged banking fees and/or how much those fees will be.

I was wondering if all banks automatically enrolled their customers into some sort of overdraft protection program, because I recently signed up for a new checking account with a very large bank, and they automatically enrolled me in one, and even gave me an automatic credit card that would act as the covering agent for the overdraft should I happen to overdraft what I had in my account with checks I wrote or with debit card charge I made that exceeded the actual amount of money I had in my account.

While most people would consider that a good thing, some consumer groups think it’s unfair to automatically enroll customers in these programs without giving them the option or making them do the decision, because most of them charge fees when this “protection” is used. I honestly am sort of glad that I’m enrolled in one now though, because for me, it makes more sense to pay the fee to the bank if I overdraft, instead of paying the fees to the bank AND the fees to the institutions I wrote checks to that may have bounced, which could definitely add up to more than what I paid in fees to the bank to temporarily cover the funds discrepancy.

However, do I think that all customers should automatically be signed up without having the choice being presented? No. Because some people may genuinely not want or need this type of protection, and they should have the option to say no to it if they don’t want the burden of being enrolled in a program.

For me, for instance, I had to make sure the credit card was activated, and it’s just one more credit card for me to keep track of, so it is kind of a pain if you look at it that way. I’m not sure if all banks work this way with overdraft protection, but they should give an option when you don’t have to actually have a credit card to cover the funds that you should happen to overdraft, it’s too confusing for the customer sometimes.

Well, it’s official. I’m now a Chase Bank (JP Morgan Chase) checking account customer. Yep, I’ve migrated from my current bank (although I still also may keep that checking account open as well, for various convenience reasons) to Chase, because it is looking like they will now be my new official single mortgage loan holder.

That’s if everything goes well, and they are able to refinance our home and combine the two loans we currently have, one through them and one through another mortgage lender where we happen to be getting the you know what beat out of us with a high interest rate (it’s a secondary loan, to cover the down payment so we didn’t have to pay the PMI, so they always charge you out the wazoo for that privelege, knowing what I know now, I sometimes wonder if the extra percentage points on our mortgage loan were even worth that knowing what I know now).

Hey, sometimes I guess you wish you would have done a little more homework before buying your first home, but when it’s all literally greek to you, it’s a bit hard to wade through the options and actually know what the right option is for you and your family in the end. It’s a leap of faith at some point, and most certainly a learning experience.

At any rate, because the loan is looking good, they talked me into signing up for a checking account through them since (this is a no brainer), they actually will give your 1% of your mortgage balanced per year back in cash, as long as you pay your mortgage bill to them every month on an automated system, through the checking account you have set up with them of course.

I tried to figure out how they benefit from this, and figured it out. They pretty much have control of getting that money from your every month this way, and in this economic climate, that can definitely be worth it’s weight in gold to have more control over your mortgage lendee’s money and when it comes to you, and that it actually comes from an account with you, if your’e the lender.

All in all, Chase offers the best checking account out there. You get a free overdraft purpose credit card, you get so many free nonChase ATM transactions per month, you get free unlimited checks and registers. They have a very sophisticated ATM machine that just scans your checks instead of using sloppy deposit slips, and they also have the best online banking system I’ve seen in a while. I’m very happy I switched, now let’s just hope they can combine our mortgages, right!?

In these unprecedented times, it’s pretty clear that the government is looking for each and every penny they can scrape out of people for Federal taxes, especially the wealthy, who actually pay the majority of the taxes here in the US because of the disproportionate percentage of their income they pay in taxes when compared to the average earner.

The problem is that a lot of wealthy people, for ions, have been stashing their money, and a lot of it, in Swiss and other overseas bank accounts. I think the Cayman Islands used to be one of the desirable places to have money too, but that I believe has fallen out of favor.

They stash this money in these overseas accounts because they are doing something pretty simple and clear cut, they are evading taxes by not declaring this income. I always wonder though, how do they think they won’t get caught. I mean, how do they get the money out – don’t they have to have it wired to a US account, and wouldn’t that then tip off the Feds that there was something fishy? I thought that banks were required to report suspicious activity like that, not only for tax evasion purposes to nail tax evaders, but also not because of how terrorism is funded.

Finally, an settlement has been made between the IRS and a large Swiss bank to declare the names of more than 50,000 Americans who are putting their money in the bank, presumably to evade taxes, although all may not be guilty of that, but why else would one have a Swiss bank account, I’m really not sure. This has a lot of the most wealthy, richest people in a frenzy seeking tax and legal advise on what they should do to avoid getting prosecuted for tax evasion.

Apparently there is a stipulation that if you have earned money legally and avoided taxes, you can get away without jail time as long as you come forward voluntarily and declare the money, pay any applicable back taxes, and also pay the incredibly hefty penalties and fines that are involved with not paying your taxes when you should.

The Obama administration has really made it an incentive to make back some money that they feel is missing and contributing to the deficit (uh, how about wasteful government spending, nah that can’t be it!), and they have proposed and had approved a suggestion to hire 800 new IRS agents to go after people who have evaded their taxes via overseas accounts. Times are a changing, and some may think it’s not for the better.

I’m not really sure how this benefits people, but I’ll take their word for it that somehow down the line this helps average American citizens. I do think that everyone should pay their taxes though, and I’m not really sure why the richest of the rich try so hard to avoid paying their share when they usually have so much to begin with. Heck, who am I kidding, no one likes to pay taxes. It’s just a fact of life!

I remember when I first started my foray into managing my own money, I started my first checking account (which by the way, I still have my checking account through them) at Key Bank, which is a bank that is headquartered just one hour from me, in Cleveland Ohio. It’s recently had some financial problems, as most banks these hard days have, but all in all, I’ve not felt any of it since I am an FDIC insured customer. Overall, I’m happy with the service but do feel that some of their transaction and maintenance fees are a bit absurd.

I also almost left the bank when I bounced the account unknowingly because of a check that did not go through as it should have, and they charged me several fees, however they later reversed them when I expressed my discontent, so I was happy with that outcome. I started to hear about credit unions when I was in my early twenties, and I really didn’t understand first of all what they were, and why so many people seemed to want to go to their credit union to sevure loans instead of to a bank that was pushed on them at car dealerships, etc. to buy large items.

After doing a bit of research, I discovered that credit unions often allowed people to have checking accounts with very little maintenance and service charges, but it also offered loans sometimes at better interest rates than customers could find at commercial banks. Because of this, I thought it was interesting how credit unions offered to people in various professions seemed to be the better way for people to secure credit as well as checking and savings accounts that were generally a better deal than what they could get at chains.

Of course, the downside to credit unions is that you’re not going to find them too much when you travel. Major metropolitan areas generally only have the major banks, and sometimes you’re even SOL if you try to find your bank if it’s a major name (I’ve found this with Key once in a while when we’re traveling across state). Not only that, credit unions are usually local, so you can’t really do deposits or withdrawals unless you are at home, and that could be a definite drawback in this day and age of convenience.

Anxiety and stress are probably the biggest issues that effect our state of mind daily. A large portion of our anxiety and stress comes from worries and uncertainties about our financial matters for the present and our futures.

One way to reduce anxieties about money matters is to get in the habit of saving on a regular basis. It doesn’t have to be a huge amount that you are saving and investing as long as you are doing so consistently.

If you set a goal monthly for savings, keep it realistic so it’s doable. Studies show that those who save regularly feel more financially secure and optimistic about their future. Just knowing that you have set a goal for savings and met it each month gives you the confidence to tackle bigger challenges financially.

One way to meet your savings goal monthly is to change your spending habits. For example, if you go out to eat daily for lunch, try brown bagging your lunch and put the difference into a savings account. Coming up with a budget plan, no matter what your income and staying with it helps you set boundaries and actually boosts your self esteem.

One major priority to set is to pay off your high interest debt. If you have balances on your credit cards, make it a priority to pay them off as quickly as possible. If you own a home, try to pay off your mortgage before retiring. This will free up more money for saving without a mortgage payment and also gives you leverage for borrowing against this asset in the event of a cash emergency down the line.

If your company offers a 401k plan, sign up for this work related retirement benefit. Often, companies match your contribution up to a certain percentage. The money is automatically deducted from your paycheck for your input so you don’t really miss it and it forces you to save.

You can request your bank to monthly allot money from your checking account into your savings account for a specified amount to build an emergency fund. Getting in the habit of living beneath your means regularly will help to give you financial security for the future and help to alleviate stress and anxiety about how you will monetarily cope with your future.

We all hate to pay them, some more than others, myself included admittedly. What am I talking about? Those darn ATM fees that eat up a couple bucks, and sometims up to three to four dollars at some ATM’s, for the privelege of accessing and withdrawing money that belongs to you anyways. It’s kind of the way that a lot of banks are making money when you withdraw your money, but they would never own up to that. Instead they say that is covers administrative and maintenance costs for your account, the machines that dispense the money, and keeping tabs on your account balances properly.

But we all know that’s something that needs to happen anyways, so I personally take those excuses with a grain of proverbial salt. I’ve seen the recent ATM fees go up as high as five bucks, which if it were me, unless I were in dire need of that money, I probably would not pay based on the sheer principal alone that it’s a rip off to pay five bucks, which equates to a perfectly good meal at a fast food restaurant, just to withdraw my money.

Then there are the fees that you have to pay to use an ATM that isn’t actually owned by your bank. For example, my sister is in town from California right now, and just for her to withdraw money from an ATM that was within her network, but owned by my bank and not hers, which is a small town bank from where she lives, she was charged a 3.50 fee for withdrawing her money.

This one is particularly baffling because I’m not really sure why they put that extra fee on when it’s “outside your network” or from another bank. Sometimes your bank may actually charge two separate fees, one from them for using the ATM, and another one if that particular ATM is out of their “network”.

It’s really highway robbery if you think about it, considering banking fees are also going up just for your monthly maintenance fees as well. Heck, I pay six dollars on one account every month, and ten on another, just for them to keep my account going. I think these fees are really getting out of hand, but they can get away with it because you “need” them, and you need checking accounts and savings accounts often times to establish credit. Bummer.

Fears about the safety of individual savings and nest eggs rose with the faltering of Bear Stearns Cos., an investment bank. The Bear Stearns Co. had to sell, at a drastically reduced rate from just several days prior, to J. P. Morgan Chase and Co. for just $2.00 a share.

In a ripple effect, concerns have grown that the problems on Wall Street could effect commercial banks and their individual depositors. The response to this concern is that bank accounts for individuals are backed by the FDIC. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. covers up to $100,000.

The coverage by the FDIC includes trusts, IRAs, certificates of deposit and savings and checking accounts. For accounts, such as retirement accounts, the coverage can be as high as $250,000. Customers of brokerages are similarly protected by a different agency.

The Federal Security Investment Protection Corp. protects the assets of investors at the brokerage firms. So, if your brokerage failed, you would still be covered. Some wonder what the limits of coverage would be by the FDIC if banks failed collectively. In 1991,502 banks failed in three years and the FDIC’s reserve ratio slid as low as negative 0.25%. The FDIC still covered all depositors at failed banks.

Last year, the FDIC was following 76 problem institutions compared with 1991 when that number was 1,430. So 76 banks are relatively easier for the FDIC to cover.