Blonch

If you are having trouble managing your credit card debt, you may need to start with knowing what you have available to make payments with. We will deal more with budgeting and strategies for paying down credit in other posts. If you aren’t ever sure how much you have in the bank, you need to balance that checkbook!

Balancing your checkbook is little more than making certain you and the bank both agree on what’s happened to your bank account each month. With electronic checking and online access to bank accounts, you may have electronic tools available for reconciling with the bank. For example, Quicken offers to automatically update your records with the bank records and keep a running tally.  The more traditional approach is outlined below.

The bank provides a monthly statement of all transactions during the period. It is important that you balance your checkbook by comparing your checkbook register to the bank statement in a timely manner in order to:

• correct errors by the bank;
• find your own errors and know how much money you actually have

Reconciling your account register to the bank statement is a matter of comparing deposits and withdrawals and adjusting the bank statement for outstanding items not yet reflected by the bank. This process will go more quickly and smoothly if you make sure your bank register is up to date. Be sure all of your transactions are entered — including direct deposit, ATM transactions, and debit charges — before you start trying to reconcile to the bank statement. We found a simple step-by-step reconciliation.

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Credit Card Debt by PecosJack