Despite how easy it is to balance a checkbook, very few people take time to do it and few who do, don’t always do it right way. If you write down in your checkbook ledger what should be deducted and added, you are on right track – if not, start there and follow these nine easy steps to a balanced checkbook. Once you are comfortable with these nine steps, it is possible to balance your checkbook each month within 30-45 minutes.

9 Steps

• Make sure that all deposits, withdrawals (maintenance fees, ATM fees, and automatic payments) are added and subtracted and calculate balance as of last transaction made.
• Keep all check-card receipts, duplicate checks (or returned checks from bank) and withdrawal slips until you sit down to balance your checkbook.
• Mark an “x” in your checkbook by each transaction that has gone through bank. It is easy to do once your statement arrives and you can put all checks in numerical order and easily check them off.
• Do same thing with any ATM withdrawals or check-card purchases.
• Make any adjustments necessary to “true-up” your ledger and comparing deposit slips and purchases/withdrawals. *If you notice any discrepancies between your records and bank’s – give your bank a call.
• To calculate your balance write down your checkbook’s current balance at top of a piece of paper (normally backside of your statement will have a worksheet to complete for this task).
• Subtract any amounts for un-cleared deposits and bank fees such as monthly fees or for any insufficient funds charges.
• Add any un-cleared checks and interest you have earned to this figure.
• Finally, compare final figure that you have to your bank statement – they should match.

1.TIPS TO HELP YOUR BUDGET STRETCH FURTHER.

There are many ideas that you could adopt to help your hard earned dollars buy more than you could before (or so it seems!) ·Do you take your lunch to work? You could save between $15 -$25 per week, if you packed it yourself. You’d have to make it interesting so you weren’t tempted to go and buy something else. ·Make your lunchbox food, and that of your children, rather than buying stuff. It is so much cheaper and often tastier! Start making cakes, biscuits and slices etc. If you have a bread maker, make bread and home made rolls for kids. Get them to design their own shapes, they’ll love it. If you add up costs of bought biscuits, cakes, muesli bars, etc, you’d realise this could be a huge saving, and considerably better for you. It’s just a training and prioritising exercise, you can do it if you really really want to save money. ·Do you eat out regularly, or have a coffee or supper at a café? Why not consider having friends over or going to their place for tea or a night out. Play games, watch a video, whatever. This would be great fun but importantly, A LOT CHEAPER. One video hire for $7 compared to all of you paying $12 each to go to movies. A meal out could cost $70 for 2 people quite easily, and that often doesn’t include drinks. You could have a great dinner party for that – and share it around at friend’s places so you all get a turn of cooking and resting as well as sharing costs. ·Menu planning is a great way I’ve found to reduce my weekly shopping bill. Menu planning involves deciding at start of week what you’ll eat EVERY night (and day) that week. Include a couple of pasta dishes or cheapies like tuna mornay or whatever. Determine what ingredients you’ll need for all these meals and then only shop for those items. You’ll find you wont have waste and you wont buy ‘on spur of moment’ items. This could also save about $20 - $50 per week (depending on your family and tastes etc)

If you put your mind to it, I’m sure you could come up with heaps more ideas of HOW you could make your income go further.