This makes it easy for you to remember PIN codes

You are at the cash register or at the ATM and suddenly forget: the PIN code of your debit or credit card. Sounds familiar?

Obviously keeping a note in your wallet isn’t the best idea, so here are three tips:

The joint venture of German banks and savings banks, Euro Kartensysteme (EKS), advises instead: Link the PIN code combination to stories and images. This makes it easier to remember.

For example, if your PIN is approximately 5741, imagine five friends in your mind taking a sailboat (shaped like a four) to the lighthouse (which is as upright as the number one) on Sunday, the seventh day of the week.

Another option, which EKS mentions on the website “pin-im-sinn.de”: assign specific locations at home or on the way to work to the PIN codes – and thus plan a route.

An example with PIN code 9351:

If you then follow this route in mind, you can compose the PIN code in this way.

That’s too complicated? You can also assign an event to the PIN code. If the PIN is compatible with the calendar, the numbers represent a date. Or you can research a striking event that serves as an emotional bridge – and visualize it.

For example, if the first two digits of the PIN are between 01 and 12, it can be read as the month and year. If the PIN is between 0000 and 2020, it works as a year. For example, with PIN 1492 you can remember that Christopher Columbus discovered America this year.

(t-online/dpa)