However there is one catch - the majority of ATMs charge exorbitant fees that can add up to some serious cash over time.  I’ve had international ATM transactions that have cost me close to $10 and it is not unusual to be charged $2-$5 in the US to withdraw cash.

Everyone knows that as long as they stick to using their own bank’s ATMs than they are spared the fee and all of their withdrawals are free.  This is great, but it can be very annoying walking by several ATMs on the way to your bank’s ATM or when you are in a place where you can’t get to one of your bank’s ATMs (think Vegas).

Luckily there is a way to avoid all of these ATM fees.  Schwab Bank, the well known brokerage house (they run a ton of TV commercials), offers a checking account that will reimburse you for ALL of your ATM fees.  When they say ALL of your ATM fees they really mean ALL, you can withdrawal cash from any ATM around the world and you will not be charged a penny by Schwab and they will reimburse you for any fees the ATM owner/bank charged you.  There is no fee to open the account, no monthly fee,  no minimum balance, and they don’t require you to setup direct deposit of your paycheck.  You can link up your current checking account and move money to and from your Schwab account with ease (similar to how you would with ING for those of you that have an ING account).

I decided to give it a try and I signed up for a Schwab account last month.  It was easy to signup at www.schwab.com and within a few days I had $1,000 transferred from my Chase Checking account into my new Schwab Checking account.  Around one week later my new ATM card arrived in the mail and it was time to take it for a test drive.

The building I work in downtown has a Chase branch in the lobby and it is very convenient for me to get money out of their ATM because I bank with Chase (thus my cash withdrawals do not have any fees).  On June 26th I kept my normal Chase card in my wallet and inserted by new Schwab card into the ATM.  A few clicks later I had asked to withdrawal $100 and sure enough the Chase ATM warned me that I was going to receive a $3 fee for using a non-chase ATM card to withdrawal cash, but I proceeded because Schwab had guaranteed me that I would never pay this fee.  The machine dispensed $100 in cash and the receipt it gave me showed the transaction debiting my account $103 ($3 for the fee).

I checked my Schwab account online a few days later and I smiled when I saw Schwab had credited me back the $3 fee charged by Chase.  I felt a real sense of freedom that I was no longer tied to the normal 2 or 3 spots I frequent to get cash.

It might seem silly to some of you that I now am carrying around two ATM cards, but I no longer am constrained by where Chase decides to place ATM machines and I can withdraw money from anywhere on the planet without paying a fee.  Does anyone else use a No-Fee ATM card?

I managed to find the building maintenance manager and he informed me that Commonwealth Edison (ComEd, the power company) had come by and shut off power to a few tenants that had not paid their bills.  I was 100% sure I had paid my bill so I gave ComEd a call.  Without going through the ridiculous details, pains, trials and tribulations of dealing with the horrendous “Customer Support” at ComEd, I am still without power for going on 60 hours.  There are only 2 things that are certain, it is not my fault that the power was turned off and ComEd has no idea when it will be turned on (amazing, right?).

Why am I telling you all of this?  Well, it has an interesting effect on the amount of money you spend.  If you can not use your refrigerator or microwave, what food do you cook especially once the groceries purchased that week are spoiled?  What type of home entertainment is available by candle light?  I think you see my point and with that said, here are my purchases over the weekend:

   Movie and Popcorn - $18

   Bars - $15

   Eating Out - $47

   Public Transit - $10

This brings my total to $39.47 (previously update) + $90 (listed above) = $129.47.  This is certainly not a good start, but I would call it a good effort considering the circumstances.  If I had been able to use the groceries purchased earlier in the week my eating out total would have been closer to $15 rather than $47.  On a positive note, I made the most of being forced out of the house and had a pretty fun weekend!  The other piece of the puzzle is that I fully intend to get reimbursed for my lost groceries and food expenditures while not having electricity.  I’ll be certain to add this to the update when I receive the credit!

After 1 week, the challenge is not really weighing on me and I’ll continue forward.  Clearly I’ve had a decent set back this week and although I will not name it as an excuse, we’ll see how it plays out over the course of the 4 week challenge.

Thoughts on how I’m doing thus far?

So, the question stands, why is there no power at the airport?  I have seen over the past couple of years futile attempts to fix this by having a row (8 stools) of space where there are outlets, or a pod where there are 3 outlets, but nothing to handle the demand of an airport.  I was most recently in the Boston airport and came upon a great setup (see pictures below).  Ironically, none of the power outlets worked.  Brilliant! 

I’m not suggesting that airports should simple give power away for free - I do realize that this costs money and certainly has maintenance costs associated with it as well.  However, I am willing to be that nearly everyone is willing to pay for power!

Would you pay $1 to have your laptop plugged in for an hour?  You get the enjoyment of using your laptop for an hour and it gets re-charged for that 9 hour flight over-seas.  Seems like a fair deal to me.  So why isn’t anyone cashing in on this idea?  Am I missing something?  Am I the only one searching for an outlet like its a pot of gold?

First, here is my basic diet - eggs, toast, orange juice, deli meat, chips and salsa, turkey dogs, oranges, bananas, chicken breast, salad mix, tomatoes, cucumber, apple sauce and tuna fish.  This should shed some light on how I’m able to get ahead on my grocery shopping.  To date, here is what I have spent:

• Groceries - $33.47 (includes all items above for 1 - 2 weeks)
• Subway - $2.5 (round-trip including transfer)
• Laundry - $3.5  ($2.5 for machines and $1 estimated for detergent, etc)

This leaves me at a current running total of $39.47.  The beauty is that I have roughly $60 to spend and all of my food is covered (unless I decide to go out to eat)!

Some of the things I’ve learned thus far (many of them not new) include buy generic when you can at the grocery, compare items by volume when shopping at the grocery, use things like working out to not only take time, but to also enforce your diet and make water your drink of choice!

The $100 Challenge is simple.  I will ‘Challenge’ myself to only spend $100 per week on all food, entertainment, etc.  It essentially includes anything except recurring bills (rent, utilities, mobile phone, gym, etc).  It will include food, going out to the bar, eating out, tickets to the cubs game, movies, etc.  My point is to expose how cheaply you can live (the harder part), rather than focus on how much you can spend (the easy part).

To keep everyone up to date I will give an end of the week update (Sunday night/Monday morning) along with updates through-out the week.  Clearly doing this for 1 week would be a joke - in fact I could probably live off of $10 or less if I had to for 1 week.  So, I’ll maintain the challenge for 4 consecutive weeks ($400 to live for 4 weeks) starting today Monday, July 6th and ending Sunday, August 2nd. 

What are your thoughts?  Think its possible?  Do you think its hard?  Do you think I can do it?  Are others in tune enough with their spending that they can offer up how much they spend on a weekly basis?