I personally have been transferring my money to higher yield savings accounts without all the fees.
There are so many new services out there that give you much higher interest than local banks. They are going to have to start competing or they are going to fall behind.
The fact that they give so little interest and charge fees is not appealing to me at all.
I had about $120 in my local savings account and I transferred it to my checking right before Jan. because I wasn't sure if my paycheck would go through before my car loan took money from my account.
I transferred it back the next day but they still took a $2.50 fee for my account going below minimum.
That ended up being a good chunk of the interest I had accrued that past year so it just frustrated me.
One other way I have been getting better returns than I get from a bank is by investing in dividend paying stocks and REITs.
@AverageJoe I was introduced to making investments on back taxes a while ago but haven't been able to understand exactly how it works. Any info would be appreciated. I will check out the link you already shared!