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3.0 BALANCING YOUR CHECK BOOK; PERSONAL AND HOUSEHOLD FINANCE, HOW TO MANAGE YOUR BILLS AND YOUR MONEY

Many people cringe at the thought of getting their checkbook to balance. But the math involved is only simple addition and subtraction.

The math is very straight forward. However, working with long columns of numbers means that you will often make mistakes with one of the entries. Most mistakes are simple. Generally they are one of the following:

== You wrote one amount on the check and a different amount in your check stubs.

Solution: double check that the number in your stubs and the number on your bank statement are the same as you check off each check.

== Check any unrecorded expenses that show up in your statement but not in your check book such as electronic deposits or electronic checks, check card charges, account fees, ATM withdrawals, automatic payments, etc.

== You added a check, deposit, or bank charge in twice or you left out one of the above.

Solution: when you find a big discrepancy subtract the (adjusted) bank balance from the check book balance. Is this number the same as one of your entries? If so it probably was not included in your math.

If that doesn't work, double or halve this amount. Is this number the same as one of your entries? This number probably got added in or subtracted twice. This happens, for example, when a bank charge has already posted to your account but you forget to check it off on your stubs so you subtracted it a second time.

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