New service charges, confusing account options, and wildly varying interest rates on savings accounts and CDs are just a few of the techniques banks are using to improve their bottom lines these days-at your expense. Here are eight tips to help you beat the banks at their own game.

1. Close out that savings account. With today's interest rates, savings accounts LOSE money when inflation is factored in. If you keep any of your money in a passbook savings account, close it out and put it in an account that will pay you a higher rate of interest. The account you need is available at your own bank; it's called a money market account. It will pay you more interest than your savings account and still allow you to withdraw your money on demand. Most money market accounts even allow you to write checks against them.

2. Shop around before you sign. Bank deregulation has produced a competitive environment offering very different interest rates and bank charges. If you can find a better deal, whether you're paying interest or receiving it, take it.

3. Consider certificates of deposit for your extra cash. In today's economy, the best investment accounts available at most commercial banks are CDs. Typically, CDs can be opened for periods ranging from 90 days to five years. Each of these maturities will yield a different interest rate, depending on the current market and local competition. As a rule, the longer you are willing to leave your money in a CD, the higher rate of interest it will return.

One way to gain maximum advantage investing in CDs is to break up your total kitty into several equal parts and invest them in CDs with staggered maturity dates. This technique allows you to take advantage of the highest available interest rates while ensuring that a maturing CD and its penalty-free cash are never very far away.

4. Don't assume you're getting the best available rate when you allow a CD to roll over automatically. Always call or visit the bank and ask to review all current interest rates for CDs, including any promotional rates. You can be certain that an automatic renewal won't get that rate unless you ask.

5. Keep a lid on bank charges. In a largely invisible ploy, some banks make you pay big penalties for small errors. Let's say you accidentally overdraw your checking account. You have $300 in the account and you write three checks in one day. The first is for $10, the second for $20 and the third for $320. Some banks process such checks not in the order they receive them but in order of size. In such a case, the $320 check would be processed first. That would mean all three checks, not just one, would bounce. Then you'd be hit with three separate bad check charges. Besides an overdrawn account, you'd be out as much as $105 in painful overdraft charges (some banks are now charging $35 for each overdrawn check).

6. Link your money market to your checking account so that you can transfer money between them by telephone or online. Never make a direct deposit into your checking account. Make all deposits into the money market account where they will immediately begin drawing interest. Transfer money to the checking account only as needed to cover the checks you write. This is one of the smartest ways to maximize your operating funds.

7. Divorce those ATMs. If you're paying anything for the use of ATMs, stop using them. Cut up your ATM card and resume that old-fashioned practice of stepping inside the bank to transact your business. However, if you're hopelessly addicted to ATMs, there is still hope for you. Check out the Web sites www.youratmstore.com or go to www.atmsurcharges.com. These sites provide lists of ATMs all over the country that are no-charge even for people who are not customers of the bank involved. However you do it, don't allow your bank to charge you for withdrawing your own money.

8. Consider firing your bank. You've probably been a victim of merger mania at least once. That's when you wake up one day to find out that the bank you've been doing business with is no longer around. It has merged with a strange new bank that promptly laid claim to your accounts.

Instead of simply sticking with the new guys, search out the smallest FDIC member bank in your neighborhood and give it your business. You'll receive more personal attention from a small bank than you ever will at a financial behemoth. Even at a small bank, you should follow the principles outlined here, but you'll be doing it in a friendlier atmosphere. Fewer banking frustrations will leave you better prepared to enjoy your stroll down the path to greater riches.