Well, yeah. Don't write checks for money you don't have. Duh. It's not quite that simple; there are many stories of banks reordering transactions for the sole

Well, yeah. Don't write checks for money you don't have. Duh. It's not quite that simple; there are many stories of banks reordering transactions for the sole purpose of generating bogus overdraft fees. That is, you have $50 in your account, deposit $100 at 1PM, and use your debit card for $25 at 2PM and $75 at 3PM. The bank would process them in reverse order, causing an overdraft for the $75 payment, another overdraft for the $25 payment (because the $75 payment took your balance down to zero), and only then apply the deposit (probably leaving you below zero after the fees). I never understood how that wasn't considered blatant fraud. Of course, the simple solution is to use a credit card and pay it off every month. (And in a real emergency, it's better to pay interest on the card than get a payday loan).