Do A Daily Review Of Your Bank Account When You’re Short On Money

When you’re living pay cheque to pay cheque, the last thing you want to do is see your bank account. The problem is that can be more harmful than soothing.

As finance blog Get Rich Slowly points out, seeing your bank account balance is a powerful motivator to save money and earn more, not to mention avoiding overdraft fees:

When you’re poor you become used to hovering near a zero balance in your checking account. It’s just a fact of life, and you live in perpetual intimidation of the negative. So you’d think this would lead me to diligently check my account several times a day to make sure I had a positive balance, but this fear instead had the effect of making me avoid checking my bank account altogether. I would go days without checking, lacking a clue about how much money I had. I held out on checking until I absolutely needed to, and then, oh, the joy at spotting a positive integer, even if it was under a dollar, because it meant I hadn’t been accruing $35 NSF fees for days without realising it.

The psychological impact of seeing your balance may not be the most comfortable thing in the world. That being said, it can save you a lot of money and help push you to get out of the rut. Check out the source link for several more great tips for how to avoid sinking deeper when you’re already low on cash.

6 things I did because I was poor that made me poorer [Get Rich Slowly]

Picture: Ken Teegardin