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Recovering Your Account
My bank account is overdrawn and I have no money so how can I recover? This is probably a question you are asking yourself.
Recovering from an overdrawn bank account can be painful, especially if you are short on money. You need to come up with a plan though. It is not something that you can simply ignore. Here is what you need to do.
Cease Using Your Bank Account
The very first thing that you need to do is stop using your checking account. No use in making the problem worse. Even if your bank will cover the new charges, the overdraft fees will keep on piling up.
Balance Your Overdrawn Bank Account
Now, you need to balance the account to see just what you will need to recover. If you still have checks out, take into account their value and the overdraft fees that will come with it. Consider everything and then figure out ho much you need to get current.
You can take out a personal loan to cover the money that you need, you can borrow from a friend or perhaps just wait until you get paid again. The quicker that you get the money the better though. Also, it is a good idea to stay in contact with your bank so that they understand that you intend to bring the account up to date.
Bring Your Account Up To Date
Once you have the money that you need, deposit it and bring your account up to date. Once your account is in good standing, you can try to recover some money that was lost.
Contact customer service and see if they will waive any of the fees. Have a good sob story ready as well as a reason for why this will never happen again. If you have never been in trouble before, it should be possible to get at least a few of the overdraft fees waived.
Typical Bank Account Overdraft Fees
Bank overdraft fees are quite high and can very quickly drain your bank account leaving you with no money. As of the writing of this article, the overdraft fee for Wells Fargo was $35 and Bank of America would charge you the same. Don’t bring your account up to date within a week, you might get hit with another round of fees. The fees can add up in a hurry and they might make the interest charged by payday loan companies look trivial by comparison.
To make matters worse, banks often deposit checks and process transactions in order of descending dollar amounts. They often say that this is because your biggest checks are your more important ones but it is funny how this can also result in more overdraft fees, hmmmm.
Stopping Bank Overdraft Fees
It is probably too late to stop your overdraft fees from occurring now but there are some things that you can do to avoid them in the future.
Opt Out Of Overdraft Protection
These days, you usually have to opt in to overdraft protection. Banks in the past had major issues with aggressive overdraft fees and it became mandatory to opt in to protection. If you have overdraft protection on, call your bank and ask to have it removed.
The downside to turning overdraft protection off is that if you write a check without enough money for it to clear, it will bounce. On a plus side, many bad check fees and late fees are comparable if not less to the bank overdraft fees.
Saving Accounts Can Provide Overdraft Protection
Open a savings account at your bank and have it linked to your checking account. If a scheduled withdrawal does not have enough money to cover it, money can be automatically withdrawn from your savings account. Some banks charge for this service, so look for a bank that offers free automatic savings account protection.
Stop Automatic Payments
Automatic payments make it easy to get things paid on a regular basis but they can also make it easy to rack up overdraft fees. Pay your bills instead on your own accord. Put together a list of monthly bills and sit down at the computer once a month to pay them. If there is not enough money in the account, wait to pay a bill until you have enough money. This will keep your bank account from being overdrawn.
If this is your plan, your best bet is to start a spreadsheet. This will allow you to know how much you will need to pay each month and you can check them off as you pay them.
