Who wouldn’t stop to read the article below the bold headline, “Ten Money Moves That Will Always Pay Off“?  In today’s struggling economy, almost all of us are on the prowl for ways to save money.

Scanning the ten bold subheads before actually reading the article, number 5 screamed at me.  It reads “Fire you banker.”  Having worked for banks for over 30 years, I was immediately shocked by this money-saving tip.  I had to read it first as I was curious as to the alternative being offered – since I’m not aware of any viable alternative.

Giving credibility to this surprise subhead, and the entire article, is the fact that it was written by Brett Arends, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.  Now most of us would agree that we can generally trust financial articles appearing in this prestigious newspaper.  This particular article appears in the weekly special, “The Wall Street Journal Sunday,” which is included in a large number of local newspapers all over the country, including the one I read – The Sacramento Bee.

Expecting to learn about some new technology alternative to traditional banking, I was surprised and delighted to read that Arends was simply recommending that readers wishing to save some money should consider divorcing their big, mega-banks and moving their relationships to a small bank or credit union.

Arends writes, “This isn’t just good financial sense – it’s fun, too.  If you’re like most people, you’re probably paying hundreds of dollars a year in account service fees, ATM charges for access to your own money and the like.

“Banks need to sock you with these fees to pay for all their overpriced and useless overhead, like the expensive marketing campaigns and the executives.”  Not expecting such brutal commentary, this sentence hit me like a slap upside the head.  But the payoff comes in Arends’ next two sentences, “Fire them all.  Chances are you have a local community bank, savings and loan, or credit union that will do the job of looking after your cash for a lot less.”

Again, I simply wasn’t expecting this kind of stuff from The Wall Street Journal.  Yet it made me giddy to see the truth in print.  Now, we can only hope that a lot of readers take his advice and move their banking relationships to their neighborhood bank or credit union.  I did this almost 10 years ago and have been saving money ever since.

By the way, be sure to read Joe Swatek’s article posted earlier today on the very same topic.