# Lower fee chequing account.



## Fraser19 (Aug 23, 2013)

Hey guys,

I am wanting to leave CIBC for TD, I currently have a chequing account with CIBC and the fee is 15.95 per month. I am going to move to TD anyways as that is who my TFSA is with. 

I am confused about what the difference is between the 8 free transactions and the 2 full serve transactions? What is the difference between the two?



> 8 free transactions, including up to 2 full serve transactions each month
> Free deposits


The page can be seen here.
http://www.tdcanadatrust.com/produc...equing-accounts/minimum.jsp?cm_sp=acctadvisor

This is my normal amount of transactions per month,
2 credit car payments
2 pre authorized insurance payments
1 withdrawal for rent
1 withdraw for to put money into a PC savings account
1 transfer for investments


Does each one of these count towards one of the transactions?
Are any of these full serve transactions?


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## Spudd (Oct 11, 2011)

Full serve means you talk to a human to do it. None of these should be full serve.

The deposits shouldn't count as transactions either. So you're looking at 5 or 6 transactions. I am not sure if transfers count as transactions or not.


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## Davage (Nov 14, 2012)

I have been banking with PC Financial now for a good 12 to 15 years. No fees, no charge for cheques, no withdrawl fees if done at a CIBC machine. Monthly fee is $0.00 You mention having a PC savings account. Have you tried them for daily banking? My pay is direct deposit, and I do all of my bill payments online. I haven't had to go to one of their kiosks in years.


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## Fraser19 (Aug 23, 2013)

Davage said:


> I have been banking with PC Financial now for a good 12 to 15 years. No fees, no charge for cheques, no withdrawl fees if done at a CIBC machine. Monthly fee is $0.00 You mention having a PC savings account. Have you tried them for daily banking? My pay is direct deposit, and I do all of my bill payments online. I haven't had to go to one of their kiosks in years.


My PC financial savings account is where I put 5% of my income to sit in cash for emergency. It is the account I do not look often or acknowledge its existence its job is just to be there if I need it. The cash just transfers over and I pay little attention too it.

I want to be with TD just to keep the majority of my accounts in once place. I will be able to keep my balance in the TD account high enough that I will not have to pay the fee, I just want to know if this account will be enough or if I should go up to the next account where I need a minimum balance of 3,500.00 for the fee to be waived. 1,500 is easy to keep in, 3,500 is a little harder with my line of work.

But if I can have this account and have the fee waived and go over the transaction limit by one or two transaction its not really that big of a deal either. 1.00/month is not going to be a deal breaker, but as always less fees it better.

I just want to have my credit card, chequing, loan and TFSA all at the same place.


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## Synergy (Mar 18, 2013)

Fraser19 said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> I am wanting to leave CIBC for TD, I currently have a chequing account with CIBC and the fee is 15.95 per month. I am going to move to TD anyways as that is who my TFSA is with.


Have you considered an unsecured LOC instead? It acts as "free" overdraft and all your transactions are "free", plus "free" cheques, etc. That's what I've done at TD and I've never dipped into the LOC. You can set up automatic withdrawals or deposits, etc.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Paying for a chequing account? It sounds so foreign to me, I forget that people still do this.


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## Nemo2 (Mar 1, 2012)

andrewf said:


> Paying for a chequing account? It sounds so foreign to me, I forget that people still do this.


You and me both. :biggrin:


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## christinad (Apr 30, 2013)

I just want to point out the td everyday savings account has a minimum of 2500 not 3500. I am deciding between the 2 too - you are right a 1.00 extra per month isn't a lot if you are generally using 8 transactions.


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## NorthernRaven (Aug 4, 2010)

Fraser19 said:


> My PC financial savings account is where I put 5% of my income to sit in cash for emergency.
> 
> I want to be with TD just to keep the majority of my accounts in once place. I will be able to keep my balance in the TD account high enough that I will not have to pay the fee, I just want to know if this account will be enough or if I should go up to the next account where I need a minimum balance of 3,500.00 for the fee to be waived. 1,500 is easy to keep in, 3,500 is a little harder with my line of work.
> 
> But if I can have this account and have the fee waived and go over the transaction limit by one or two transaction its not really that big of a deal either. 1.00/month is not going to be a deal breaker, but as always less fees it better.


TD actually has an account level between the "Minimum" ($1500 balance) account you are looking at and the "Unlimited" ($3500 balance) you mentioned. The "Everyday" account has a $2500 minimum balance, and has 25 transactions. You don't make purchases with your debit card? Those are transactions as well.

If you are having trouble keeping the necessary minimum in your desired account, just do a one-time transfer of some padding from your PC savings account. You are only forgoing $13 per thousand bucks per year in lost interest, which may be a good deal to get the features from your desired package. 

Which TD credit card do you have or will switch to? The "Unlimited/$3500" level gives you $20 off the annual fee for three of them (First Class Travel Visa Infinite / Platinum / Gold Elite), which might make up for the lost interest on any extra "dead" money needed to meet the minimum. The "All-Inclusive" ($5000 minimum) waives the fee altogether for those cards. There's a bunch of other little freebies with this one (waived TD/network fees for all non-TD Interac/Plus ATM withdrawals worldwide, free small safe deposit box, free personalized cheques, no commission on travellers cheques/bank drafts/certified cheques), and if you actually use that stuff you might come out ahead by losing a few bucks of interest to pad the balance.

You might also want to look at having your rent/insurance pre-authorized payments come out of that PCF savings account instead of a chequing account, if possible. I have my rent and a couple others done as PADs from my Hubert (Manitoba CU) HISA account - it reduces the volatility on the balance in my TD chequing account. As unneeded surplus builds up in chequing, just transfer it over to whatever HISA you have.


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

You don't necessarily have to move your accounts, you simply need to talk with the bank staff and figure out what accounts might be best suited to your needs; as many chequing accounts don't have fees if you hold enough cash in there.

That said, there are many no-fee chequing accounts...PCF, Tangerine, etc.


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## Beaver101 (Nov 14, 2011)

My Own Advisor said:


> *You don't necessarily have to move your accounts, you simply need to talk with the bank staff and figure out what accounts might be best suited to your needs*; as many chequing accounts don't have fees if you hold enough cash in there.
> 
> That said, there are many no-fee chequing accounts...PCF, Tangerine, etc.


 ... +1 ... best to talk to a "live" person if you don't already have a personal bank rep. to serve you.


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## liquidfinance (Jan 28, 2011)

andrewf said:


> Paying for a chequing account? It sounds so foreign to me, I forget that people still do this.



That was what I was thinking as well. :biggrin:

I shudder at the thought of it.

I'm not sure when I last had to walk into a bank for anything.


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## wendi1 (Oct 2, 2013)

Last time I really had to walk into a bank, I was doing an estate (none of that stuff has been moved into the 21st century). It's all sign this, copy that, prove this...

I would go PCF, if I were you. Can't beat free.


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## Nemo2 (Mar 1, 2012)

Walked into a bank yesterday......to pick up some Danish currency.......now, if that Icelandic volcano would just cooperate.


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## nobleea (Oct 11, 2013)

Part of my mortgage rate negotiations was no banking fees with their best plan. One benefit of doing as much business with one bank as possible. The rate was the same as brokers too.


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## travelgeek (Nov 29, 2009)

I know you said you're going to TD, but another full serve bank to consider is RBC. If you have a rewards credit card with them, along with a TFSA (or other qualifying investment account), you get the multi product rebate which makes its basic day to day account free. With that account, you get 10 free transactions a month.


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