so i'm taking a leap towards a worse off future...

[Skinny Jones 10+ year member]

yous a dummy

 

[bigbangtheory 5,000+ posts]

I found it strange as how many people still don't balance their check book. Is not that hard to do and you know excatly what you have in there. I have online banking, debit cards and I log everything in my check book to be on the safe side. Like I said before in another thread, I don't let my amount in my checking get below 1000 anyway.

 

[Captain_Ahab 5,000+ posts]

I made the same mistake about a month and a half go.. I checked the ATM and I had about $30 in it..

I ate out and made it $20 even after the tip.

Then got $8 in gas.

Went to Sonic one day, and used a Sonic Card. It was .52 short, so I just popped in my debit..

Well, apparently some charges had not went through yet when I first checked my balance from the ATM. Each charge cost me $30, for a total of $90 in over draft charges..

That .52 at Sonic ended up costing me $30.52!

 

[elementxero 10+ year member]

I had to do that once. I got charged a fee on the atm fee, the atm withdrawal, and a pack of cigarettes I bought all in one month. Old check cleared unexpectedly. >_

Best to leave a nice pad in there though, don't spend beyond your means.

 

[elementxero 10+ year member]

I don't let my amount in my checking get below 1000 anyway.

Yeah that really is key. I mean it can be fun to have a spare grand to spend money on toys with, and even hard to resist in this "everyone needs something they don't need" culture of cool garbage to waste money on, but the measure of that feeling of good is one tenth the measure of that feeling of bad that you get when something unexpectedly bad happens that you aren't prepared to handle.

 

[Fusion_FREAK 10+ year member]

Dont feel bad. I got over drafter 3 times @ $25 a piece last week. They opened back up after the holiday weekend yesterday, but I've been 200 miles away from home at work for the last 2 days.

I checked my account just a little while ago, and I have 3 more over drafts. They're $35 a piece. So now I'm almost $175 over drafted. Bad thing is, I haven't used my card in a good week, and all 6 charges aren't even over $50.

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Bank Of America FTL.

 

[Scoobydoo 5,000+ posts]

I havent overdrawn in years and the only time I did wasnt my fault. I had called my bank and stopped payment on a $500 check, but they screwed up and cashed it about 4 days later anyway after i used the money for something else and it overdrew me. I called asking WTF and they said they had a record of me calling about something, but they had no record of why I called. I payed it back and took my business elsewhere.

Now I never let my checking account get below about $2k so I never worry about being overdrawn.

If I am going to be out spending money all day instead of using my debit card 10 times that day I just take out cash and use that so I know there is only one charge that day for exactly that amount.

When I do use the card I try to round everything off. $45 in gas, $21.xx at a restaurant becomes $25 exactly after tip, etc. I try to get rid of the change

It is much easier to keep track of that way.

 

[Fusion_FREAK 10+ year member]

Oh, to make it worse, the account is so new, I didn't even get my debit card in the mail yet, just the temporary card they give you.

I fail, horribly.

 

[Scoobydoo 5,000+ posts]

On a more related note. A few months ago a girl owed me $20 and gave me a bad check. Not only did I not get the $20, I had to pay an extra $6 transaction/handling fee from my bank.

So think about that when you are writing bad checks, the people you are writing them to may be getting charged fees from their banks as well and thats why many places have returned check fees to cover their ***

Needless to say I screwed that chick a few more times and dumped her to the curb when she didnt pay me back.