Out of curiosity since I am trying to figure out to pay for college billing as easily as possible…does it matter (fees wise) whether an echeck is made through a checking or savings account? Would there be any issues going through a savings account this way? Thanks!
I think it depends on the individual school.
Agree that it’s best to contact the individual school. For our kids, there was an option to make payment through a payment plan each semester for $50/term. This allowed payments to be spread out over 5 payments instead of a lump sum and was helpful to us. There was no additional charge to use a credit card, including one that gave us cash back, so that was how we generally paid. The particular payment plan we used also allowed us to put campus housing on the payment plan. All of this helped us spread out the payments more instead of a huge lump sum.
The individual schools are great at answering the specific questions on form of payment, as they all differ.
Thanks for the replies @runswimyoga and @HImom but I was more referring to banking charges when using an echeck from a savings…lol sorry for the vagueness
I have never used a check before and since my family would (ideally) like to make payments using the echeck through a savings account, we wanted to hear anyone’s experience using this instead of a checking account.
I’ve always done it through my checking account, but check with your bank.
It can really vary depending on the banking institution as well as on the type of account you have at that bank. Fees are all over the map. It’s best to call or visit your bank branch and ask the question specific to your own accounts as it is not a “one size fits all” answer.
Thanks for the response…I was only following up because the person I talked to at my bank was vague and only said they charge for wiring fees…which then comes my question is that are echecks considered wiring money? I am not very savvy with banking terms
echecks are not considered wire transfers.
thanks for the clarification @doschicos !
Mkay I did a little bit of reading and found out that it’s heavily restricted to write echecks directly from a saving’s account. I guess the next best thing will be to open up a checking account and just do transfers. Thanks everyone for the thought process 
I set up an account with Fidelity to transfer $
We use Tuition Management Services, which spreads the payments out over 10 months per year, and sucks it out of your account automatically. Both of my kids’ schools, as well as their private high school, used this service.
Open a checking account at the same bank as your savings account, and you should be able to transfer funds immediately and for free into checking. eChecks should be free from a checking account (from the bank’s perspective, they’re ACH (Automated Clearing House) payments). AFAIK, checking accounts are DDA (Demand Deposit Accounts), while Savings Accounts are not.
Savings accounts have a maximum of 6 withdrawals or transfers per month (to prevent you from using it as a checking account). It would probably be okay to pay from savings if you only have a few transactions per month. I paid my daughter’s taxes from her savings account yesterday and it was free to the IRS for a transfer from savings or checking. I’m only slightly nervous about it since every year I ask for my refund to be deposited into my savings account and every year they put it into checking.