When you are preparing a household budget, chances are you don’t include a line for bank overdraft fees. Overdraft fees are never planned and certainly incurred by “accident”. The accident in this case is writing a check that cannot be covered by the cash in the account.

If you have ever overdrawn your bank account, you are part of a group of 51 million Americans who do the same thing each year. Unfortunately, overdraft fees can become a major household debt. They are one of the highest fees charged against consumer accounts and the average overdraft fee is now $34. When you are living within a tight budget, a few $34 fees can cause real financial difficulties.

One of the problems with fees like these is that they are difficult to overcome. The reason an account becomes overdrawn in the first place is that the cash balance is kept low with no leeway for mistakes. During the current recession, with unemployment at 9.8% in the USA, there are millions of Americans who don’t have any spare cash. Short of funds to begin with the overdraft fee only makes the situation worse. Now you have to cover your bills and the fee.

Those fees add up for consumers and for banks. The Center for Responsible Lending did a study earlier this year and reports banks and other financial institutions collect a whopping $24 billion in overdraft fees. You can think of the $24 billion as lost household income. In fact, the study reports that more household income is spent on overdraft fees each year than on buying books, postage or even fresh vegetables.

The overdraft fees are a transfer of wealth from households to banks. They represent money that could be spent in the marketplace to stimulate the economy. In the last 2 years the amount of overdraft fees has increased by 35%. According to the study, each year 27 million bank customers overdraw their accounts five or more times.

For many consumers the overdraft fees are seen as unfair because the banks have control of when deposits and withdrawals are posted. It is a simple act for a bank to post checks first and deposits last for example.

Some banks post the largest checks first with the intent of charging as many overdraft fees as possible by drawing down the account. Instead of bouncing one check, for example, you bounce two or three.

Most likely Congress will address these kinds of issues as it re-evaluates bank treatment of consumers and bank fees. In the meantime, you should try to avoid overdrawing your account and count overdraft fees as an expense in your household budget. This is one debt you have a lot of control over and can reduce quickly. In fact, one of the things to watch out for is making small debit card transactions that are denied and trigger overdraft fees.

Overdraft fees can affect your credit rating too. When you want to obtain a mortgage for example, your bank will be contacted and asked how many overdraft fees are on your account.

When you are looking for ways to balance your household budget or are rebuilding your credit, it’s important to take everything into consideration and that includes overdraft fees.