Chapter 6. Financial Foolishness: Overspending for Financial Services

The financial services industry is fueled in great part by money that consumers simply do not have to spend. That’s a bold statement, but it’s true. Banks, investment firms, and a myriad of other financial institutions thrive in part because consumers are intimidated by the world of money and are ignorant about how it works. Consumers’ dollars leak through carefully planned cracks in the financial system, like a dripping faucet that ends up wasting hundreds of gallons of water.

We have talked about why many insurances are unnecessary and how much money consumers waste on insurance. But the waste doesn’t stop there. Consumers are unnecessarily paying fees for simple bank accounts, ...

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