Managed care health insurance plans, mostly HMO's, focus primarily on prevention, and people with these types of policies pay less for their coverage. The drawback is that you are limited to specific health care providers. Indemnity plans, also known as fee-for-service plans, will cost you more- but you are completely covered no matter what illness or accident might occur. Indemnity plans place an emphasis on patient choice, allowing you to choose where and when you are treated.

You can banish traditional checkpoint balancing forever. How? By taking advantage of your bank’s “between statements” record-keeping. It’s perfectly legit and accomplishes exactly same goal as statement balancing, but Instant Balancing is faster and simpler.

After all, point of checkbook balancing is to make sure your bank hasn’t made any mistakes . . . and/or that you haven’t. Either way, most people want to avoid bouncing checks or ever-embarrassing ATM “insufficient funds” message.

Hey, What About My Banking Software!

You say you have software for balancing your checkpoint? Get rid of it if all it does is balancing. This software compares bank records against its records and then you have to update your written checkbook records. These activities create way too much opportunity for error.

Things You Need for Instant Balancing

1. Your checkbook, written one. If you insist on keeping balancing program, then have program checking account ready to review also. If you only keep your transactions in your software program, make sure it’s up-to-date.

2. Internet access. A simple dialup connection works just fine. An Internet security program is a must.

3. Access to your checking account ONLINE. Why? Because you’ll need “any time” access to do Instant Balancing. If you don’t have this access, call your bank and find out how to get it. Ask for a web site name, and a username and password.

When To Do Instant Balancing

How often you Instant Balance depends on how many transactions you generate in a given time frame. The greater number of transactions, higher possibility of errors.

A guideline is to Instant Balance 1 to 2 weeks after last time you wrote a bunch of transactions, like after you’ve paid household bills. If your timing is good, you may not have any balancing to do at all!

6 Instant Balancing Tips

1. Use a calculator for checkbook additions and subtractions. Even if you’re a math wizard, you’ll make mistakes.

2. Because you may be logging onto internet account infrequently, you may forget your user name and password. Record information and put it in a safe place.

3. Your bank account internet access may time out after a certain number of minutes. Just log on again.

4. Most internet banks allow you to isolate transactions between certain dates. Use this feature – it cuts down on number of transactions to review.