Evidence, my dear Watson! Evidence! In seeking the bank of your dreams, you have to practice some mad detective skills. Finding a bank is no trifling matter. These people are going to be keeping your money for goodness sakes! You don’t want them lighting up some home-rolled Benjamin cigars. Smoking money is just. not. cool.

It seems like a waste to take up a bunch of your time to find a bank when you could just roll up to one in town and sign up. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. But signing up is just the beginning. Getting a bank that doesn’t fit you is like being in a relationship with someone you don’t like. Sure, you need to do a little research in finding a bank. The possible alternative is getting an extremely inconvenient bank that sucks away your money like an unstoppable vortex, where you spend hours upon hours screaming at them over the phone. You could save yourself the hassle by spending some time figuring the whole bank thing out. Plus, you want a nice little interest rate on the money you store with the bank, right?

Yoda says, “With your money, tread carefully you must, young Skywalker,.”…Okay Yoda never said that, but if he wasn’t a short, long-eared Jedi master with little need for anything at all, he probably would have considered it. So, here we have some things to ask yourself first, where to look, and picking your bank.

Things to Ask Yourself First

• Why do you want a bank account? There are a heck of a lot of reasons to bank, but why are you doing it? “Because everyone else is” doesn’t fly in those overdramatized anti-drinking/anti-drug commercials, and it doesn’t fly here. To help you pick one, you have to know why you want one. Do you want them just so you can store your money somewhere? Are you looking to make some money on high interest rates? Do you want to save your money? Do you want easy access to your money?
• How would you prefer to bank and spend? The how is just as important as the why. How do you spend your money? Do you like using a debit card? Do you prefer cash? Checks? How would you like to communicate with your bank? Do you need a one on one interaction? Would you prefer to just email them? How do you put money in the bank? Do you use direct deposit? Do you deposit it yourself?
• What do you want from your bank? Are there certain services or features that you absolutely want from your bank? Do you want e-alerts? Do you want free checks? Online access? Do you want to link accounts?
• What is the most important thing to you? Considering all these things, what is the most important? Do you want as few fees as possible? Do you want that high interest? Do you want a local bank? Easy ATM access? By establishing the most important thing, you can rank the goods and the bads from there.