NEW YORK — The nickel-and-diming never stopped.The fees were constant: $28 to cash a paycheck. $1.50 for a money order. A dollar or more every time I swiped the prepaid cash card I bought at the drug store.In all, I racked up $93 in fees in a monthlong experiment of living without a bank and making a go of it on the economic fringe. That works out to $1,100 a year just to spend my own money.It may be hard to fathom why anyone would live this way, but a federal study last year found that about one in four U.S. households skirts banks and relies on services such as check-cashing and payday loans. Many of these households bring in less than $30,000 a year.Some do it because they believe they dont have enough money to open a bank account or were burned by fees in the past. But its not always a matter of choice: Many cant open an account because of a history of bad checks or damaged credit.

via The Associated Press: Living without a bank: Fees and confusion galore.