A surprising number of people I speak with don’t write down their transactions at all. They check their balance online, or at the ATM, and trust that it’s close enough to accurate. Me, I keep a $100 invisible cushion and write down each transaction, no matter how small. I round the change up or down, so I just deal in dollars. When I reconcile the account every month or so, if I have accumulated something over the $100 cushion, I transfer it to savings. If I am under, I adjust the balance in my register.
In the last 6 months, I have written 37 checks. I have filled up 13 pages of my personal register. Currently, there are still two checks outstanding from three months ago. They are small checks, $8.00 and $10.00. At some point, I will call the recipients of these checks to find out why they haven’t been cashed. But imagine if I didn’t have that cushion, or if it wasn’t easy to flip through pages (they are both on the 7th page back from my current page) to find the un-cashed checks. I might have just transferred the overage ($18.00) to my savings account, then pay big surprise overdraft fees when they finally go through.
I’m not saying technology doesn’t have a place in my banking life. I just prefer to write it down so I can avoid paying what Dave Ramsey calls “Stupid Tax.” Get the Superior Check & Debit Card Register today.
In the last 6 months, I have written 37 checks. I have filled up 13 pages of my personal register. Currently, there are still two checks outstanding from three months ago. They are small checks, $8.00 and $10.00. At some point, I will call the recipients of these checks to find out why they haven’t been cashed. But imagine if I didn’t have that cushion, or if it wasn’t easy to flip through pages (they are both on the 7th page back from my current page) to find the un-cashed checks. I might have just transferred the overage ($18.00) to my savings account, then pay big surprise overdraft fees when they finally go through.
I’m not saying technology doesn’t have a place in my banking life. I just prefer to write it down so I can avoid paying what Dave Ramsey calls “Stupid Tax.” Get the Superior Check & Debit Card Register today.
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