Banking Basics - Deciding How to Pay

When you buy something or pay bills, you are transferring your money to someone else. There are several ways you can handle these transfers. You need to decide which method best fits your family’s needs and spending patterns. Deciding how to pay for purchases or bills depends on many factors, such as:

•amount of money you have
•amount of the purchase or bill to be paid
•number of purchases to be made or bills to be paid
•your experience and skill in handling money
•cost, convenience, and safety of various ways to make purchases or pay bills
For example, if you were deciding whether to use money orders or open a checking
account, you would need to consider things like:
•How many bills do you pay or purchases do you make each month? How many of
these cannot be paid in cash (or are not safe or convenient to pay in cash)? How
many money orders would you need to purchase each month? How much would they
cost? Is there a convenient place for you to purchase money orders? Does not
having a checking account create problems for you, such as making it difficult
to cash checks that you receive?
•How many checks would you probably write each month? Would this affect the
monthly service charge for the checking account? Would you need to keep a
minimum (or average) amount of money in your account to keep service charges low?
What other

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