Extremely Lame

Are banks operating on narrower and narrower profit margins or are they just getting greedy? The latest in financial idiocy that a lot of people won’t realize until it’s too late because they don’t teach personal finance in school anymore? Debit cards that are tied to your 401(k).

Not only can the bank be netting interest off of you from your loans, martgages, and credit cards, the latter of which I am hoping to alleviate soon, now they can hit you with monthly fees and interest on your retirement savings as well. Oh joy! Don’t forget that since it’s coming out of a 401(k), Uncle Sam gets his cut since it wasn’t taxed when the money first went in there.

This seems almost as stupid as the last hare-brained idea to give people with little economic sense money from places they shouldn’t be taking it from, the home equity line of credit. I say almost as stupid because while using your retirement account as yet another way to get a bunch of crap you don’t need, that affects your future so it’s possible to build that back up. Defaulting on a loan that’s based on the part of your house that you have already paid for can easily make you homeless in the now.