Yep, dealing with cash comes with significant costs too. It's a hassle to handle much of it

Those cash processing fees would only apply if the cash was repeatedly deposited and withdrawn, and probably only by businesses. The hygienist can probably deposit cash for free, I don't think I've ever paid a fee into a consumer bank account.

Taxes will do the same, though. Employers have to payroll taxes, employees have to pay income taxes. The $50 will eventually all bleed back to the government.

That's true- everyone with a checking account pays a "fee", even if that's in the form of "allowing the bank to loan your money out to make more money"... except for maybe USAA. Their checking accounts are free, no account minimums, and they even pay a little bit in interest. Not just anyone can get a USAA checking account though so I guess that doesn't really count.

So long as you don't use a brick and mortar bank, most banks have interest providing checking accounts, although rates vary wildly.

Savings accounts in particular are egregiously terrible at brick and mortar banks. I made more in interest payments in my first month at Ally than I did in the ten years I had my child hood savings account at Bank of America.

Ally is a special case and you’ll find most other virtual banks don’t match their rates. They’re fighting for customers.

TMobile Money was fighting Ally pretty hard when rates were rising and had me switching money back and forth for a little while. Goldman Sachs traditionally fought with Ally. Doctor of Credit has large lists of smaller banks with favorable rates. It's just the traditional large brick and mortar banks rip off customers who just assume having money in a savings account is a good thing to do.

I wasn’t aware T-mobile had a bank. You’re absolutely right about savings accounts, it took me a while to explain to my wife how you lose money using the traditional ones.