I learned the hard way, many years ago, that I have to keep a very close eye on my credit card spending to avoid spiraling into uncontrolled debt. So I always keep my credit card receipt when I pay by card, and I always record any tip and the total amount on the receipt when I pay by credit card at bars, restaurants etc. Later, when my wallet gets too fat from all the receipts stuffed inside, I manually enter the amounts from the receipts into Quicken on my computer, so that I can reconcile them later against my credit card bills.

This is tedious and somewhat time-consuming, but as a result I am in full control of my credit card spending, and no longer go further into debt than I intend to.

I’ve also discovered by doing this that many restaurants regularly overcharge on credit card transactions. Normally it’s just a few bucks and I don’t bother doing anything about it.

However, today I discovered that the somewhat fancy Salt Restaurant on MacDougal Street in New York’s Soho overcharged me by $10 recently. The bill came to $14