Read Your Bank Statements and Save Money

Are you one of those kitchen drawer offenders - a person who does not read their mail, but instead dumps it into a kitchen drawer where it stays until the end of creation?

Well, before you throw your bank statements into the infamous kitchen drawer, read them – because you may be loosing money.

I know you are scarred to look at them, because you are afraid of what you will see. However, I promise you, that if you man up, open your statements and read them you can save yourself money that you did not know you were spending.

Often when we don't properly manage our accounts we subject ourselves to miscellaneous charges that we are not aware of. So just by discovering those charges, and correcting the problem, you have just saved your self some money now and in the future.

Spending Patterns

Bank statements list every transaction that you have made within the month. The statement will show where your money is going. Since it is a detailed list of transactions it is a good source to identify spending patterns. So, if you are coming up short in the pockets every month and can't remember where you spent your money, your statement will show you. Try it, pull out 3 consecutive months of statements and read each item debited from your account, you will begin to see a pattern and for most of us, a pattern of waste. This will show where you can make some cuts and save some money.

Unnecessary Fees

A dollar here, a dollar there can add up to a lot of dollars missing out of your account. Bank statements not only list every transaction that you made with in the month, but list activities that you were not aware of like miscellaneous bank fees. Most bank fees can be avoided, but if your statement is sitting in the kitchen drawer, you probably don't know that you are being charged.

Some common bank charges are:

Monthly Service Charges - some bank accounts require you maintain a certain minimum balance every month. If you fall below that minimum, they will charge you a nice hefty fee until you get above that minimum balance. If you are not reviewing your statement you will one day find out that your little stash has gone bye- bye.

Overdraft Fees – your bank will charge your account when it has to transfer money from one of your accounts to cover drafts in another account. My bank charges $27.00 for every overdraft – ouch!

NSF Fees – are hefty, running upwards of $25 - $35 dollars. You can save tons of money by simply opening your statement and balancing your account. Not to mention if you bounce to many checks your bank can elect to suspend your account.

ATM Fees – the bank will charge you anywhere from $2.00-$2.50 per transaction for using the ATM machines. For example, if you use the ATM 4 times a week it will cost you an average of $10 a week or $520 a year. These fees can be avoided by reviewing your statements and then by making certain changes like walking into the branch once a week and withdrawing enough money to last you for the week, instead of running to the ATM daily racking up unnecessary charges.

Human Error

The last thing you need is to bounce checks because someone made a mistake. A few years back, I deposited my paycheck into my checking account. When I completed my transaction, I did not look at the receipt that the teller gave me. A few weeks later, I was getting ready to write out some bills and as custom reviewed my statement. I then noticed that my account balance was too low and discovered that there was no record of the deposit that I had made a few weeks prior. Luckily, I keep my transaction records – so I pulled out my deposit receipt only to discover that the teller had placed my check into someone else's account. Needless to say, I flew down to the branch like a bat that escaped from Hates to get this big problem corrected. To make a long story short, they put the money back into my account, despite the other person having a little shopping spree. This could have potentially caused a lot of problems. If I never looked at my statements, I would have not discovered the problem before I started to write out checks.

The simple task of reviewing your bank account on a monthly basis is a habit worth developing. Though to some, it may seem a little scary at first, the benefits of incorporating this practice will soon outweigh any apprehension that one may have. After the initial shock and adjustments, you will soon find that by simply reviewing your account transactions you can uncover many opportunities to save money.