This weekend I spent a few hours working on my never-ending financial to-do list. First, I researched and opened a new bank account. Then I dug through my purse and found a crumpled health savings account statement that I've been carrying around for months, hoping to find time to shop for a better account. Yep, it's about the fees again!

Until recently, I insured myself and the kids through the Star Tribune's high deductible health care plan. But then my husband's employer tweaked its health insurance options and we decided that it was a better for us to go with a health care plan tied to a health reimbursement account (how that's different from a health savings account is a scintillating topic for another day) because it has a slightly lower deductible plus a generous contribution from his employer.

Shortly after I switched, I learned that I would now be on the hook for the $3.75 monthly charge for having a health savings account with Wells Fargo.

Other HSAs charge annual fees, fees for smaller balances and other charges that this gal growing up in the era of free checking just doesn't want to pay.

I hate the idea of my small health savings stash being whittled away by small fees.

Surely there's a no fee account out there somewhere, right?

Unfortunately, there's no robust site that lists the various fees and matches consumers with good card choices. Someone should get on that! But fortunately there's Google.

I decided to shoot for the moon and typed in "no fee health savings accounts." Plenty of financial institutions popped up. But I hadn't heard of many of them and some had really amateur looking websites. So I kept hunting.

I tried the search "HSA custodian" and found an invaluable blog entry from the personal finance blog fivecentnickel.com. The reader comments listed names of banks and credit unions with good options.

So with a $15 donation to the Friends of Palo Alto Library and a short online application, I am now a member of the Stanford Federal Credit Union. The CU's no fee health savings account earns a whopping 1.50 percent. Really, that's not bad considering the low interest environment we're in and the fact that my balance is low and I won't be contributing more to the account.

Before I started this entry I did a quick search again and found this fatwallet forum dating back to 2005 on HSA custodians. That entry lists a couple of options that are even more attractive. Adirondack Trust Company, how can you still afford to pay a 5 percent APY?

Bottom line: It almost always pays to spend time shopping around for financial products when your financial institution tacks on another icky fee. But it's a time consuming process and chances are there's a slightly better option hiding out there somewhere. I still feel pretty good about my new account.