For example, “February 2020 rent unit No. If you’re paying your landlord rent for February, you may want to write the month and your apartment number. It’s also a good way to let the recipient know what this check is for. If it’s to pay the down payment on your new car, you may write “Car Down Payment” in this space. If this is for groceries, you may write “Groceries” on it. One common way to use this memo line is for categorization. Filling out this line is optional, but it can help in many ways. On the bottom left of all checks is a short line with the word “Memo” or “For” printed on it. Like above, this makes it harder for a fraudster to add more numbers to the amount and drain your checking account. For example, on your $102.95 check to the YMCA, you would write “One Hundred Two and 95/100.” Notice you write out the dollars but always write the cents numerically.įor added safety, you should always draw a straight or squiggly line that fills the empty space between the end of your writing and the end of the line. On this line, you will spell out the dollar amount you are paying. 4.īelow the payee line is a long line with “Dollars” printed on the right end. This prevents a fraudster from adding numbers to the front and turning that $102.95 check into a $1,102.95 check. 95/100.”Īlways start writing the dollar amount as close to the left border or the left end of the line. To avoid this issue, you can put the cents over “100” so it’s clear those are cents and not additional numbers after a comma. Here, you’ll write the exact amount of the check in dollars and cents numerically - for example, $102.95.īecause you’re writing this check by hand, it can be easy for some people to miss a decimal point or mistake it for a comma. To the right of the payee line is a small box or line with a dollar sign in front of it. For example, if you’re paying to rent the Young Men's Christian Association hall for a birthday party, you can write the check out to the more well-known YMCA. If you’re paying a company or organization with a long name that’s colloquially known by an acronym, you can use the acronym instead. While a mild spelling error in a name is not a deal-breaker, you want to use care to get the spelling correct to make depositing the check easier for the recipient. On the payee line, you want to clearly write the full name of the person or company you are paying. 2.īelow the date and to the left is a long line that generally has “Pay to the order of” written on it. If the person you wrote the check to deposits it digitally, they could easily change “02/06/20” to “” and attempt to digitally deposit the check in 2021. This is particularly true in our example above. Writing a check for too long in the past can raise a red flag at your bank, too.Īlways write out the full year, as a slick fraudster can easily change the date if you only write the last two digits. Writing a future date, which is called postdating, can cause your bank to reject it. For example, if you were writing a check dated February 6, 2020, you could write the date in any of these ways: You can write the date many ways as long as it has the month, day and year in that order. The date goes on the short line on the top right corner of the check with “Date” written next to it. The first step to writing a check is to put the date on it - without this, the bank can’t cash or deposit it. If you find yourself in one of these situations or another that requires a check, you’ll want to start from the top - literally. You’re shopping at a store that doesn’t accept credit or debit cards. You’re paying someone who lacks a peer-to-peer payment account like PayPal or Venmo. You’re paying a large down payment on a car or other purchase. Your landlord won’t accept cash or a debit card for rent payment. Here are a few times when you may need to write a check: When you may need to write a personal checkĭespite declining use recently, sometimes paying by check is unavoidable or even preferable. But first, let’s look at a few situations where you may need to write a check. According to Qualtrics, 42% of millennials write checks, so understanding how to write one is still a crucial part of financial literacy.īelow, you’ll learn the key steps to filling out a personal check the right way along with some helpful tips. With so many payment options today - cash, debit cards, credit cards, peer-to-peer payment systems and more - personal checks are nowhere near as popular as they once were, but they’re far from extinct.
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