Kenneth C. Carrara and Daniel L. Thornton look at the cost of holding various types of money, in particular, checkable deposits. The authors approach this issue from both an analytical and a pragmatic perspective. The various implicit and explicit costs of holding money are discussed, and recent survey data are used to estimate the total annual costs of holding four types of checkable deposits for “representative” depositors. This article should provide readers with useful information that will better enable them to choose the least costly checking alternative given their particular needs for checking account money.