For as long as I’ve been writing about personal finance, there has been an constant argument between credit cards and debit cards. Those who have first hand knowledge of how difficult it is to extricate yourself from credit card debt are right to argue that credit cards are evil. Those who have never carried a balance and happily spend their reward points, or cash the cash back checks, are also right to slam reward-less debit cards. I believe that you should understand your own strengths and weaknesses and pick the type of card that suits your needs.

However, in all the arguments, I very rarely see mention of charge cards. By definition, a charge card is simply a credit card that must be paid off in full every month. There is no minimum payment because there is only one payment – the balance in full. There is no interest rate because you can’t carry a balance. There is, however, usually a relatively severe penalty if you fail to pay in full.

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If you have fifteen minutes, you can be earning more interest on your savings account. Many Bargaineering.com readers are familiar with high yield savings accounts, so for the seasoned veterans you won’t get much out of this post (maybe this one on reward checking accounts is new to you?). In recent weeks, there’s been a huge influx of new readership and I wanted to take the time to introduce a concept that has been all the rage in personal finance – high yield savings accounts.

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Banks used to make their money by taking customer deposits and lending it out at a higher interest rate. Along the way, they discovered they could siphon off a little bit here or there in the form of “fees” cleverly disguised as “convenience” charges.

Bankrate does annual fee surveys of what banks charge and the fee amounts are absolutely astounding. Overdraft or nonsufficient funds (NSF) fees average $29.58, ATM surcharges average $2.22, and the average monthly service charge on a checking account is around $12.55. That adds up to billions of earnings for banks.

Let’s talk about how to minimize these fees.

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Credit unions exist to help its members. Commercial banks exist to enrich their shareholders.

You read that right. Credit unions are unions that exist to help its members. That’s why they often have better interest rates on both loans and deposits. Commercial banks are businesses. Their sole purpose is to figure out how to make more money from its customers (you!). Interest rates are often very low (or nonexistent), loan rates are often competitive, and they always try to sell you new products because you are a customer.

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Since Career Week was so successful, mostly because of all of your insightful comments, I thought I’d bring you another “week” of focused posts. This time, since we are so near the end of the year, we’ll be focusing on an annual financial review. In reality, the topics in this series apply to any time of the year,not just year’s end, but you have to take a look at least once a year.

I hope the tryptophan from Thanksgiving has cleared your system because I need you fully awake this week. In each of the four areas, I’ve picked a few topics designed to “optimize” your personal finances. Some of them are very basic, like getting more interest out of your savings accounts, while others may be a little more complex, like optimizing your asset allocation. Regardless of the topic, I hope you let me know what you think of it. You guys made Career Week a success, I hope we can do the same with the Year End Review.

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