If you aren’t doing this, and you want to be able to balance your checkbook at the end of the month, then you need to start keeping track. It goes without saying that to balance your checkbook, you need to have a checkbook register with a running balance.
#My checkbook how to#
Here’s how to balance a checkbook… Preparing Your Checkbook Register Everyone should be able to perform this simple financial exercise. Next, you can simply keep your debit card receipts and deposit receipts and periodically check them against your bank records using your online account access.īut I’m not here to explain why this isn’t a good idea. First, you can simple keep a sizable cushion in your checking account so that you’ll never have to worry about an overdraft. I would argue that we can also achieve the three goals above using a more simple method. Since we don’t write as many checks these days, there isn’t much of a worry that we’ll not have enough money to cover a check that’s still out there. Today, however, we can understand our money situation in easier ways: by logging on to our bank’s online account access page, or by viewing our bank’s mobile phone app, or seeing all of our accounts at one time using a service like Personal Capital (review link). If your latest statement with the bank says that you have $1,000 in your account, and your running checkbook says that you have $1,100, then you need to reconcile the two amounts and determine what’s causing the difference.īalancing your checkbook helps you achieve three goals: identify the bank’s errors, identify your errors (more likely), and it tells you your true balance so that you don’t write a check for more than you have in your account.
When you balance a checkbook, what you are doing is reconciling the balance that you have in your checkbook with the bank’s balance. This is definitely one of those skills everyone should have, regardless of the fact that many of us don’t write more than one check each month. One of the first money lessons my Dad taught me was how to balance my checkbook (i.e.
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