Balancing Your Checkbook
Balancing your checkbook is easy, but it’s something you must do consistently if you use a checking account. I didn’t know that you needed to reconcile your account each month when I was in college, and I also didn’t realize that my bank charge me a monthly fee for my account. Over Christmas vacation my freshman year, I went overdrawn, and I had no idea why. You can prevent this by reconciling your statement every month.
I had a friend who thought he could avoid having to balance his checkbook each month by not using checks. He would simply use his debit card for all transactions, and when he was out of money, his card would just start declining. For some reason he was bound and determined to never balance a checkbook.
Of course, he didn’t realize that he had overdraft protection, so he was paying bar tabs when he was overdrawn and incurring overdraft fees like crazy. He stormed down to the bank and had the manager remove the overdraft protection. Sure enough, a month later he needed to buy something, but he didn’t have the money in his account. Didn’t take him long to ask the manager to reinstate his overdraft protection. (The manager refused because my friend had been such a jerk during their last encounter.)
The morals of these two stories? The first moral is that you should balance your checking account every month religiously, whether you want to or not. The second moral is that you should treat the employees at your local bank with respect and courtesy, even when you’re frustrated. You never know when you might need their help.
If you don’t know how to balance your checkbook, read the detailed instructions at HowToWriteChecks.org: How to Balance Your Checkbook. The site offers multiple articles and tutorial for people who want to learn more about banking, checking, and savings.
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