You “win” when stores OK your debit card purchases even though there’s not enough money in your account to cover the bill. And as a post-game bonus, you get a trophy filled with overdraft fees.
Steven Kent, who had two unpaid intern gigs while going to college full-time, and who now writes for WalletPop’s Money College section, explains:
I personally mastered a little game I affectionately dubbed “checking account chicken.” The object of the game (so named because as you play, you can see the headlights of fiscal doom bearing down on you), is to use the lag time between the posting of debit card transactions (run as credit) to spend more money than you actually have.
By the end of my second internship, I was a near-virtuoso at checking account chicken. I could turn $10 into $50 for a few days, and I knew exactly how long almost every major retailer took to post debit card transactions (two days at CVS pharmacy, a whopping five at certain Walgreens).
Of course, I also lost my fair share of “games,” and paid a couple hundred dollars in overdraft fees along the way. I’m sure any qualified financial planner would have a field day disparaging my little pecuniary pastimes, and in retrospect, I agree.
Besides that, many banks have begun changing their transaction posting procedures so you can’t do this. I’m simply describing my black-belt mastery of this odious practice to convey the kind of monetary gymnastics you can force yourself into if you don’t stick to your budget.