Checks are not free money

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Checks are not free money. You need to keep track of them or they will throw your mental account balance of what is really in your account off kilter. In other words you'll think you have more in your bank account that you actually have. Checks tend to only show up on your balance statement after the payee has cashed it. He may to it the same day he receives the check or wait a week, weeks or a month.

Tuesday
I made my doctors appointment for Thursday.  I now had to figure out where my co-pay money would come from.  My roommate mentioned something about checks working like money.  Hmmmm?
Well, my co-worker was selling some silver jewelry at very reasonable prices.
Did I say ‘very reasonable’ already?

I bought 2 pieces with the CHECK.  Boom $40 gone.  I sealed up the checks so I wouldn’t be tempted to get into them again.   I figured that the 8 labels I used to seal them up would be sufficient.   Then I found myself tearing one out to use for the Doctor so I would be saving $35 of my allowance.  Er… yes I see the flaw here too.  SO, I re-sealed the check books and handed it over to my roommate.  I’ll tell him about the doctor’s check on Friday.

The next time you check your balance at an atm you wont have the information and you may overdraw and land up with a bounced check. Find a way to always know how much you have? If you have an iPhone Quicken online is great for tracking all your accounts. It takes some initial setting up, but you'll never have to worry about uncashed checks again. You can simple add the transaction in manually and it will remove the double entry once the actual check has been cashed.