For some reason, Charles Schwab has unreasonably good checking accounts right now. Unless you use one of the other two slightly reasonable online banks (Ally / Capital One 360), it’s very likely you could save $200-500 / year by avoiding fees with this account.

5 reasons I use Charles Schwab:

• 100% ATM fee refunds anywhere in the world. Charles Schwab doesn’t just *not* charge you a fee to withdraw money, they also refund you for any fees that other banks’ ATMs tack on to your withdrawals. This saves me around $40/month. It also makes me feel good to be able to use any ATM anywhere without having to pay $3-6 in fees… especially if I only need $20.
• No minimum balance fees or other regressive “gotcha fees” for being poor or just having my money in other accounts from time to time (unlike Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, etc)
• No overdraft fees. Obviously you have to transfer money in to pay off your balance if you spend more than you have. But Charles Schwab just lets you do that and doesn’t charge you extra. By comparison, the average checking account holder in the US spends $225 per year on overdraft and NSF fees.
• $100 sign-up bonus. If you have $10,000 you can (at least temporarily) put into the account at opening, you get paid even more just to be their customer.
• 0.1% interest on checking balances. Admittedly, this isn’t a huge deal. But interest rates are low across the board right now and most banks pay you nothing on checking balances so it’s certainly nice to get something.