Apart from impulse buying, Americans have another financial problem. According to a recent poll, most Americans don’t know how much money they have in their bank accounts. Why? You might ask. Well, it’s because they’re too scared to check.

The study was conducted by OnePoll for Cushion.ai on 2000 participants to find out how often the average American checks their bank balance. The survey also focused on attitudes towards bank charges and saving habits.

Anxiety towards bank balances

According to the poll, 55% of people are scared of monitoring their bank balances as often as they should. 60% admitted to feeling anxious before checking the balance. Three in five participants also said that CIVID 19 has only increased this anxiety.

Even with this fear, most of the average respondents still check their balances four times every week. That totals over 200 times annually.

The poll also shows that 31% of the respondents are also not new to ‘close calls’ where they are not sure if they have enough money to pay for a certain expense. 38% of these participants admitted to often ending up in overdraft fees for those expenses.

Given that the participants lose upwards of  $48 on ATM fees, 38% admitted to being frustrated by ATM and bank withdrawal charges, while 33% expressed their displeasure with overdraft fees. The participants also preferred spending 16 minutes more in a bank withdrawal to avoid ATM and withdrawal charges.

Discussing charges

Four out of ten participants admitted to asking for discounts in service charges, while 27% have made a call to argue about a charge. While the calls were largely unsuccessful in saving money, participants admitted to other methods of saving money. 38% switched from expensive service providers to save a buck, while 37% unplug appliances to save electricity.

Americans are, however, quite good at guessing their account balances from the top of their heads. While 19% were sure they knew their account balances, 84% said they’d not be off by more than $200.