You're listening to lifekit from NPR.
Hey, everybody, it's Marielle.
Today we're going to talk about bank accounts with a personal finance expert, Yaneli Espinal.
And actually, her mom had an awful experience with a bank.
That puts a fine point on what we're going to discuss.
She had an account with a major bank, and they were charging her dollar five every month, his monthly fee if you go below dollar 50.
And she went below dollar 50, but she wasn't aware of the monthly account fee.
So by the time she went to check her account, she had maybe 15, $20.
And she was so frustrated.
Like, the whole point of this account was to have a safe place to.
Keep my money, and now my money is gone.
And she was so infuriated, she closed the account.
She didn't want to have it.
Yaneli, by the way, is a director at NGPF, a nonprofit that trains educators to teach financial literacy in schools.
And she wrote a book called mind your money.
So, I mean, kudos to her mom, in a way, right?
Cause once you have a bank account, even if it's not working for you, it's hard to muster the energy to close it.
There's just so much inertia, and you think, like, am I really going to find anything better?
But Yaneli says there are a lot of options, and you can find a bank or a credit union or even an app that is a good fit for you.
And she says it is important to put your money in one of these places because you don't want it all sitting in cash at your house, and you don't want to pay fees at a check cashing place every payday.