About a month ago, I received a marketing direct mail from Wells Fargo.

Now, I hate junk mail, I assume most of us do, but I always check every single piece of mail because you never know what may lay inside of it. I usually just open them, skim through the copy and put them in my shred pile if I see it’s not important. I’m sure most of you have seen sign up offers saying, we have a sign-up bonus of $50, $100, $200, $XX. There must be a catch, right? Well there is, and there isn’t. It all depends on how disciplined you are. Some of them are pretty straight forward. In the case of this bonus, Wells Fargo required me to open a Everyday Checking Account and make 10 debit card transactions within 60 days, OR set up a recurring direct deposit to the account that would amount to a minimum of $500 a month.

But what about the fees? The Wells Fargo Everyday checking charges a customer $10 a month (at time of writing) if only certain criteria are not met. If you’re serious about making money and saving, then these requirements are easy to meet. The requirements to get your free money and avoid fees are:

1. Make a minimum of 10 debit card transactions a month
2. Deposit a minimum of $500 a month via direct deposit
3. Maintain a minimum balance of $1500 month to month.

Personally, I like opening an account, saving extra cash, and forgetting about the account, so I opt for either option 2 or 3.

I typically do option two first since the company I work for allows me to do direct deposit to multiple bank accounts. This gives me 3 months to make these deposits until I save the minimum amount of $1500 to avoid the monthly $10 fee.

After I hit this milestone, then I reduce the amount of money I direct deposit into the account, and regress to putting more money into the other accounts I use more. Typically with these kind of offers they require you to have an account open and in good standing for 1 year. I usually cancel my accounts after this time has passed and then redo these a year or two later. In the last 7 years I’ve easily made an extra $7000 through these money hacks!

The lesson here is, open your junk mail, be disciplined about accounts, and start making the system work in your favor instead of having your money eaten away.