I recently got a bill in the mail, went to pay it online and found out they would only accept a personal or bank check… excuse me? The audacity! Wake up, it 2020. Well I can’t go get a bank check with everything closed so I guess I need to write a personal check… wait a minute, besides getting one in a birthday card from my grandmother about 10 years I don’t even know if I’ve seen a personal check. How do I even handle this archaic process?
Step 1, is the simplest and most logical, ask my wife to do it. She wouldn’t be perplexed and have to Google how to do this but she’s at work and I need to get this in the mail today. (Maybe I’ll write another blog about waiting until the last minute for everything I do)
Step 2, ask her if we even have checks and if so, what irrelevant junk drawer are they buried in?
Step 3, Once I actually got the check in hand the first thing is to put the date on it.
Step 4, write out who the check is for on the “Pay to the order of” line
Step 5, Write numerically the amount the check is to be for in the box and write out in words the amount on the line below. You write it out in words to prevent any funny business. In most cases, a bank is actually going to go off of how it’s written out. Putting the amount on a check is a pretty important step you don’t want to send out a blank check. Next thing you know the kid up the street changes his name to Macintosh, buys a mansion, and starts living off of your money. I’ve seen it happen a thousand times.
Speaking of Blank Check, anyone ever look into why that FBI Agent woman was kissing an 11 year old boy? Anyway…
Step 6, Fill out the memo portion. This is typically optional. It could be for your personal use if you want to keep track what you’re spending on or in my case, I have to put my account number on there for the company I’m sending it to.
Step 7, Sign the check on the line in the bottom right. Surprisingly when I looked up these steps on that Google machine all the whippersnappers are talking about, they said this is the most forgotten step.
Now you’re done figuring out how to write a check… Feel free to practice and send some checks to me.