Find a bank that doesn’t charge overdraft fees. If you so happen to live in Colorado or Arizona, FirstBank is a good choice.

Not only are there no fees for anything, they even give you the option to block your card from charging more than your available balance. Card machines will literally only do a partial payment, using whatever is left in your account, allowing you to pay the remaining balance with another form of payment. It works everywhere and is really neat. Find a bank that offers this.

I feel you. It’s very expensive to be poor.

I don’t have “overdraft protection,” I’ve told my bank I don’t want overdrafts to go through

Typically overdraft protection means it takes money from your savings, or other linked account, and transfers to your checking. When I had Bank of America they charged me $5 every time this happened.

I have an account at a credit union now, no overdraft charges, no cost when it pulls money from my savings account.

I FEEL THIS. My bank tells me its not possible to turn it off on my checking account. Blows my fucking mind they can’t just deny a tranaction if I don’t have the money even if I ask 😭

I’ve always been able to decline overdraft when opening a bank account in person. Banks argue the fee is preferable to the embarassment of having the transaction declined, but with how often credit cards flag fraud the embarrassment when it happens is practically zero.