How Writing Checks Can Save You Money and Financial Trouble
One of the most common questions asked by people today is can writing checks really save you money? The answer is yes, it can, and it’s important that you realize this. It’s true that many people use credit and debit cards, and there are also lots of people who use the Internet to pay for everything, but when it comes to saving money, nothing beats writing a good old fashioned check.
How Checks Can Save You Money
There are basically two kinds of checks you use: business checks and personal checks. Business checks are those you use for formal occasions and business transactions, and personal checks for your everyday daily purchases like when you go out to eat or pay for an item you just bought. Regardless which method you use, you enter the specific amount you have to pay and enter the transaction in your record book for reference.
A credit card on the other hand, lets you buy items now and pay for them at a later date. Even if you don’t have money now, you can buy the item using your credit card and you then have to pay for it when your credit card bill arrives. The Internet on the other hand, has many payment methods available, but all the major retailers support credit cards, so you can buy the item and get billed for it later.
You are probably familiar with all those processes already and wondering how checks can save you cash. The answer lies in the way a check lets you pay for an item. A check, first of all, forces you to pay for the exact amount and nothing more.
This does several things: the first one obviously, is that you will never end up paying more than you should, and that fact alone translates into savings. Second, you get to look at the cost of the item. You are also forced to think about how much you are going to have to shell out for the product.
Checks Help Avoid Debt Unlike Credit Cards
The above scenario isn’t possible with a credit card because you can pay for it later. The problem with that, as you may have guessed, is that it becomes hard to resist the temptation to go window shopping and grab everything in sight and pay for them later. And since credit cards don’t require you to pay the full amount, many people just keep putting off the full payment amount.
What happens after that is pretty obvious: the few hundred dollar money owed quickly turns into a debt running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The fact is that the system makes it all too easy for people to just go out and spend and get into trouble. This is something that not too many people realize, but it’s true and happens a lot and with terrible consequences.
This is also true for those cases wherein you pay for items bought online using your credit card and get billed for it later. The situation invariably turns into something similar to the one above where you end up owing a huge debt. Even if you do pay, the temptation to go on a spending spree is just too good to resist. With a check though, you can curb the edge to spend more effectively.
It’s for these reasons why a lot of people prefer to write checks, because it is not just practical but also helps you manage money more easily. If you want to save money and have better control of your finances, you can find checks at CheapChecksPlus.
Author Bio: James Hodge is a finance consultant who has worked with several financial institutions around the US. He has also written several articles answering the question can writing checks really save you money?. He lives in San Diego, California.
Category: Banking
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