Do you keep a running total of your expenditures for the month? Do you keep a running total in your checking account, or do you guessitmate what you should have after your additional bills come out? It can be time consuming to make sure that you keep a running total of the amount of money you have available to you, but it is worth the effort. Here are five reasons why:
1) It will save you money if you do not overdraw your account. You will not need to pay insufficient fund fees to your bank, or the places you wrote checks. If you have a cash reserve account you will save money on the finance charges.
2) If you do not know where you are spending your money it is difficult to change your spending habits. This is one of the most basic steps when it comes to money management. If you are keeping a running total it is easy to see where the money is going.
3) Many people mistakenly think that because they used their debit card that the money is automatically deducted from the account. It can take several weeks for debit card transactions to post to your account. It depends on how quickly the merchant processes your sale.
4) It really does save time to keep a running total. If you take just five minutes out of every day, you will save time when it comes time to balance to your statement. You will save time worrying about whether or not you really have enough in your account to cover the purchases. You will have more time to do the things you want to.
If know that you do not want to do this, then you should switch to a cash-only system. This way you can sit down, pay your bills twice a month, total the amount in your account, and then withdraw the amount for daily expenses in cash. You will not have to worry about overspending, because once you are out of cash you won’t be able to spend anymore.
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