How Postdating Your Checks Can Help You Manage Money Better

You will need an active checking account, a check and a pen to complete this task.

For many people, post dating a check is a way of extending the money that is not currently available in your account, although you wish to use it today. When writing a check, most businesses look to make sure your check is complete with a date. Although many do not pay attention to the date that is on the check, just simply make sure that there is one on there.

You always have to date a check. Since you are postdating it, this means you are not going to use today's exact date. If you know that you do not get paid for another 2 days, and that date will be on January 5, then put the date of January 5 in the date area of your check.

Your check always has to have the name of the person or business you are writing the check to. So, now you will fill in the name in the space that says Pay To The Order Of, or it could say Pay To. This gives you a short line, and if you cannot write the entire name in, there are abbreviations for places that are used such as Co. for company.

Your next line will be the amount of your check, and if you are paying the amount of $25, then you would write the number words in as 'twenty five dollars and no cents' in this area. To the right of this area will be a small box. Inside this box is where you write the amount of the check again. So if you are paying $25, then you will write in $25.00 inside the box. Now if you keep track of what your checks are wrote for on a regular basis, you can write in the lower left corner, what this check is for. This line is labeled For, and if it is paying for groceries, write that purpose in.

The last step in postdating a check is to just put your John Hancock on the line in the bottom right corner. Your regular signature should be sued, because your bank looks at this signature to make sure it matches your signature card that was filled out when you opened your account.

Remember that just because you give a postdated check to a company, it doesn't mean that they will hold it until that date. When they take it to their bank, if the bank takes it, your check will bounce when it hits your account because there are not enough funds there to cover the charge. A lot of cash advance places tell you to postdate your check, so that it is available for them on the date you are to come pay off your advance. This is perfectly legal in this instance in the US, as it is posted on their wall that no one entering into a contract for a cash advance will have charges brought against them for postdating a check in their establishment. If your check is cashed before your money gets to your account, you will probably get a NSF fee charged to your account and a bad check charge from the company you wrote the check to.