3 BIG Places to Check Your Bank Each Month – How and why to check your bank account every single day to make sure that everything is getting spent in the right places, protect yourself from scams and fraud, get rid of what you don’t use, and save more money.
I am here today to help you understand why you need to check your bank account more frequently. I understand that it’s one of those things, when you’re checking your bank account for the very first time, you just don’t want to look at it because I know it’s gonna be bad.
I know it, I’ve been there, too, I understand. However, if you don’t look at your bank account, you might be missing out on a ton of money leaks inside of your budget every single month that you could patch up. Or if it’s not a leak, it could be a huge problem, like somebody stole your identity, and you didn’t know.
So here’s how we’re going to do it. Every day, I want you to take your phone, find your banking app and open it. And literally, just look at it. Make sure everything’s on the up and up.
Just take a look at it. It doesn’t have to be that you have to sit there with a spreadsheet and overanalyze everything. Just make sure everything makes sense.
If you’re expecting that you have $1,000 in your bank account, and you have two cents, then obviously, either bills came out that you weren’t remembering or something went wrong, and you need to look into it. But you would never know if you weren’t paying attention.
Literally, it could be a minute, it could be five minutes. If everything looks like it’s good for you, then great! Don’t worry about it, you’re all set.
But it’s that habit of looking at your phone, looking at your bank, checking your balance, making sure everything looks right to you every single day.
We are here to talk about your bank account and what you need to be looking for, to make sure that you’re not missing out on big or smaller leaks in your budget.
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1. Check Your Subscriptions
The number one that you need to do every single month is to look at subscriptions that are coming out of your bank account. They might not be sending you an email reminding you that you got a subscription box that you pay for the subscription (there’s a subscription box service that I keep forgetting to cancel because they never email me before they’re about to charge me, they never email me after they charge me either, which drives me even more nuts).
Whether it’s a big expense every month or a small one, those things add up. And if you’re not using it, it’s a completely pointless expense to have.
So check your bank statements, every once in a while every month for subscriptions that you’re paying for.
You should be checking it to make sure that there are subscriptions that are coming out that you like that you use and that you want to keep. And if not, you can get rid of them. If you really don’t feel like you need that subscription, then awesome, you can get rid of it.
SIDE NOTE/ PRO TIP:
When you go to cancel a subscription, they will basically bend over backward and do everything in their power to try to keep you with them. And so they’ll offer you some kinds of discounts or a pause on your account with them that you can come back to in a few months or whenever.
It’s a great way to also get a discount on something that maybe you did want to keep. I canceled our home security system when we found a different company to go through. And then when I went to cancel our old system, they kept offering me huge discounts. We were paying $50 a month for this home security system, they then lowered their price to $10 a month to try to keep us. If I had known that, then I wouldn’t have bothered getting the new security system.
But it’s a really great thing to have and to know that you have an option for.
So check your subscriptions, see what you like, keep what you like, get rid of what you don’t, because there’s nothing worse than paying for something that you don’t want or need.
2. Surprise Fees
Another thing that you need to check on our surprise fees. Sometimes banks do that. Sometimes you hit a fee for having too many deposits or too many withdrawals or too many moves from your checking to your savings or savings to check first off. (If that’s the case, then you should look for a new bank.)
But if there are any surprise fees that you see coming out, even if it’s small things like I got an email for like a 99 cent fee from a Google Play or an app or something that I had on my phone. I didn’t remember what it was for. And those little fees do add up.
They can point from apps or companies that are charging you maintenance fees for apps that you didn’t even realize that you had or they can point to other problems that you have going on.
If you don’t maintain a certain balance in your bank account, there are some banks that will charge you a fee. If you’re not staying above a certain number in your account. (If that’s the case, you can find a new bank that doesn’t do things like that. There’s nothing wrong with leaving that kind of bank.) So checking for surprise fees that you didn’t know that you were going to be charged for.
3. Make sure that every expense on your account is one that you’ve authorized
Here’s the big one. When you check your account regularly, you can check to make sure that everything that is going through your bank is something that you authorized.
Identity theft is a huge, huge problem. Everybody’s doing their shopping online. And it’s an easy place for people to steal your identity, steal your credit card information, and go party with your money.
When you check your bank account every day, you can see that you spent money at a Texas Walmart… When you live in California. Did I spend money at a KFC in Georgia? When I live in Pennsylvania? No, I did not.
Those are things that are obvious red flags that you might see because obviously, I did not spend money in Georgia.
But because it was such a small number – it was a dinner at KFC, so it was like $20 – somebody had stolen my credit card and I almost totally overlooked it.
And this is what happens is sometimes people steal your credit card number. And will do small purchases like that. It’s not always huge ones, sometimes small ones they do a lot of times it’s big ones, it’s small ones that you won’t notice.
That’s when you need to be on the lookout for things like that that are happening inside of your bank account. But if you’re not looking at your bank, you wouldn’t see the warning signs.
So those are the three things that you need to do. Every once in a while to check on your bank. Look for those three red flags to make sure that you’re not overspending and that you can fix any money leaks inside of your budget.
We need to be looking for subscriptions. Keep the ones that you love, lose the ones that you need that you use, and get rid of anything else that’s not serving you. Like I’ll be honest with the world as it is right now and everything, I’m not going to be going to the gym anytime soon. So I had to cancel my subscription to the gym.
Yes, I would love to keep it and yes, I would love to think that keeping my subscription to my gym active is going to mean that I’ll use it. But I know realistically that I’m not going to use it.
Be honest with yourself. If you’re not using something, especially like a gym membership.
Check for surprise fees, fees that your bank is charging you, fees that you are getting from other apps that you didn’t remember that you’re paying for anything like that, that seems to be recurring. This could be a small payment or a larger payment, it doesn’t matter. And absolutely get rid of any fees that are happening inside of your bank.
If you are not using that service, get rid of them. Or if you are, make sure that you put that in your budget so that you know when those fees are going to be coming out. If you’re getting charged fees from your bank, and you feel like you shouldn’t be, go find a new bank. There are so many out there. And they all have fantastic apps that you can use on your phone.
Third, be on the lookout for any unauthorized purchases from your card. I mean, you guys have all heard of credit card skimmers at gas stations, be on the lookout for that kind of stuff that’s happening, it does happen.
Just check on your bank account, it doesn’t have to be that you have to go through it with a fine-tooth comb every day. It just means that if you know that you got gas, and then went to the grocery store, and went to Target on the same day, those should be the only three things that will come out of your bank that day. If you start to see 10 different transactions in a day, and some of them you’re like “I don’t remember that,” then that might be something that you want to call your bank and talk to them about and say “I saw this charge, I’m not sure what it is, can you help me?” and they will help you. That’s their whole job.
I hope that this helped you. And remember, check your bank, on your phone every day, even if it’s just for a minute. Or it could be five minutes if you have to really go through it. It doesn’t have to be scary. The more you know, the better, and that way you can manage your money even better without it feeling like a chore. Without it feeling like this big scary monster under your bed. You can do it.
I want to know what are some of the things that you always look for when you check your bank account?
Let me know in the comments.
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