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According to a Wall Street Journal article written by David Enrich, bank fees continue to rise even thought the economy slumps.

Many large national banks have begun to raise their fees across the board in order to boost revenues. Banks make money through two different sources. The traditional way they make money is by lending out money at a higher rate than they are paying to have access to it. The second way is through various fees. When a large number of loans start to default, it makes it so that the banks have to rely more on fees to make up for the lost profit.

“Earlier this month, for example, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. started charging customers of other banks $3 nearly every time they use one of the bank’s 9,100 ATMs. Before that, the fee ranged from $1.50 to $2.” Assuming ATM use remains constant, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. can raise their ATM income by 50-100%. There are not a lot of investments out there that earn those kinds of returns. $3 to use their ATM may seem high, but if you consider the cost of tracking down your own ATM it may end up being quite the bargain.

If gas costs $3 per gallon and your vehicle gets 20 MPG, the most you would be willing to travel to avoid the fee is 20 miles round trip, or a 10 mile radius from your current location. If you consider how much your time is worth to you, you would be willing to travel far less. This is one reason why banks can get away with these relatively high fees.

While some consumers may wonder if J.P. Morgan’s fees are a bit excessive, J.P. Morgan has an alternate viewpoint. They claim that “ATMs are a convenience for its customers. ‘If you’re not a customer, you have to pay for that convenience.’” Others say that the higher fees give consumers incentives to join that particular institution. J.P. Morgan does not charge its customers to use their ATMs, so joining their company would be a good way to avoid those obnoxious fees.

How high can bank fees go? They can go as high as the market will bear. Once consumers start to say that enough is enough, then fees should start to level out, but in the meantime they will continue to rise to offset their loan losses.

If you don’t want to join these fee happy institutions, but still need the cash, there are ways around the fees. For example, don’t spend $3 on fees to take $20 out of the ATM. Withdrawal up to your daily maximum, and live off that money until it is gone. You could also use the money that you need and then redeposit it at your institution when you have used all that you need. If you take $20 at a time, it will cost you $15 per $100 taken out. This is like paying a 15% tax on your withdrawals. Another way out of the ATM fees is to get a debit card and make all of your purchases on debit. Transactions on debit cards are typically free, and the transaction will also show up on your monthly statement. With cash, if you forgot what happened to $60 of that $200 that you took out, you will have to rely on your own receipts to find out.

While ATM fees are here to stay, there are ways to get around them and save some money. Remember, if you did only one ATM transaction per month, it would cost you $156 in ATM fees over the course of a year assuming the ATM fees were $3 per transaction.