On the first of every month I feel a sense of dread when I log onto my internet banking. Are my fees going to be high again? Is my account going to be overdrawn?

The answer almost every time to both these questions is yes!

We are a single-income family and I am a stay-at-home mum so money doesn't exactly grow on trees at our place but we manage, except around the first of every month that is.

Last week on the first of the month, I checked my bank account and sure enough my bank had taken $27.50 out of my account!

Last month it was $26.35, the month before that it was only $21.55! But if you ask me that is still ridiculous.

So I asked my friends for advice on a new bank. Several of them pay around $5-$6 a month. One said her bank had no fees at all.

I also have a savings account with an online bank, their fees ... $0! Yes, that's right, $0!

So how does that work?

They say it's because they don't have branches and everything is done online, but with my other bank I do everything online.

Parents will sympathise when I say with a two-year-old boy the last thing I want to do is go into a bank, so everything I do is online, but yet it's still so expensive?

I'm paying around $300 a year on bank fees ... it's going to the bank which announced it made $173.9 million profit in six months!

Wow, that makes my $300 look small, doesn't it? So 10 years and probably about $2000 or so in fees later, I think I've done my fair share of supporting my local bank. It's time for a change.

JENNA WHEELHOUSE

Bendigo