balancing your bank account

[LLMom]

I was talking with a friend of mine and told her I hate balancing my account even though I do it with quicken. She was surprised I did that.  That got me curious so I asked someone else and they said they don't balance their accounts either.  How many of you still balance your checking/debt account either the old fashioned way or with something like quicken?

[Luckymama]

Dude, yeah.

 

We use software.

[MomtoCandJ]

I do, just because there are checks that take a while to clear (dd1's school takes a while to cash checks).

[5of5]

Nope.  Just check online to make sure that there aren't any suspicious charges.

 

And, where's the poll!   :001_smile:

[HSMWB]

So does this mean they do not budget at all either??? . . . . yes, I (we both) keep track of our money.

[Slache]

I don't. I use bill pay so all of my money goes out in one day. If I write a check I put a note on a post it and keep it by the computer until it's cashed. I check my balance twice a month.

[Guest]

I do twice a month. It takes 10 minutes and makes me feel very organized. But, I used to be a bank teller so I adore making the pennies balance!

[Guest]

I do, just because there are checks that take a while to clear (dd1's school takes a while to cash checks).

OT, but my DD's pre-k takes a month to cash checks. Annoying!!

[Guest]

I do, just because there are checks that take a while to clear (dd1's school takes a while to cash checks).

OT, but my DD's pre-k takes a month to cash checks. Annoying!!

[Mergath]

I don't.  Everything gets budgeted and bills paid immediately on payday, and then I take out a pre-determined amount of cash to use for things like groceries.  We don't write any checks, so there's nothing to balance.  Unless you count the initial budgeting as balancing, I suppose.

[SamanthaCarter]

I don't, and I'm a CPA so you might expect me to be anal about it. We write so few checks it hardly matters. 

[regentrude]

We don't.

We have electronic banking and can see all our accounts and transactions online which is entirely sufficient.

We barely write checks either; we pay bills electronically, and anything we possibly can we pay by credit card (paid off monthly)

 

[milovany]

No way! I do the bookwork for our family and I spent years frustrated nearly every month over a missing penny or two or ten (my parents were both bankers and instilled in me the need to balance). Once I started doing online banking and using billpay over 10 years ago, I stopped.  I log in several times a week, see what goes in and comes out of our accounts, verify that the charges are legitimate*, and call it good!  We also have a line of credit attached to our checking account so that if for some reason we do go below $0, it pulls from the LOC so we never, ever bounce payments anymore either. I haven't had a frustrating minute (related to balancing a checkbook) with banking for years.  It'd be a time waster now.  I have better things to do! 

 

*Fewer than a handful of times have there been questionable charges and every single time the bank caught them and called me to verify. 

[Slache]

So does this mean they do not budget at all either??? . . . . yes, I (we both) keep track of our money.

 

We live by a very strict budget, but keeping a checkbook is a waste of time for us. If all of our bills are paid in one day and we pull cash out to buy groceries the next then what's the point?

[Mama Geek]

Yes, I use money dance which works better on mac than quicken does.

[LostSurprise]

We don't. 

 

It used to bother me, being the daughter of an auditor, but dh either can't or won't use a log for checks and withdrawals so I just input everything later and keep a cash reserve for dh's payments. It works, and I get to see it on the page when I catalog money in and out when I do bills every 2 weeks. I don't bother to resolve it to the penny because we will never be completely caught up. I just budget, estimate, and deal with big bills myself. 

[Butter]

I do, using an Excel file, daily.  I love balancing my checkbook (possibly because I do it every day so it is fast and easy) :)

 

ETA: I also check and pay off my credit card daily/every time there is a balance if it's not daily (we pay most of our bills using the credit card).

[Pawz4me]

We don't.

We have electronic banking and can see all our accounts and transactions online which is entirely sufficient.

We barely write checks either; we pay bills electronically, and anything we possibly can we pay by credit card (paid off monthly)

 

Same here.

[momto10blessings]

We havent in years. We just check every month to make sure there are no suspicious charges. We do have a budget but it's easy to keep track of in our heads.

[SKL]

I do it the old fashioned way, with a pen in my paper check register.  :P  Until recently I always did it after every check / debit, but nowadays I will let it go a little while before doing the math.  I just eyeball it to make sure there's enough left for whatever check I'm about to write.

 

But, I know people who don't balance theirs at all.  It seems nobody ever told them that was a thing. :blink:   Makes me wonder what else they don't know about.

[SKL]

I'm a little weird about balancing things to the penny.  It gives me a thrill.  It's a good thing all of my jobs have involved accounting.  :P

[Suzanne in ABQ]

I do it fairly regularly, and balance to the penny.  I use the bank's website access, and update my checkbook to show all online payments and automatic deposits, as well as the few checks I write.  Once I know how much money I really have, I pay my bills online, manually.

[ajfries]

I use YNAB for budgeting and track item amounts as they clear. Way easier than doing it all at the end of the month.

[Plink]

I balance my account - and I've caught the bank in several very large errors which they were happy to correct when they heard about them.  Do those of you who don't balance just assume that the bank is incapable of errors? 

[milovany]

I balance my account - and I've caught the bank in several very large errors which they were happy to correct when they heard about them.  Do those of you who don't balance just assume that the bank is incapable of errors? 

 

What kind of errors?  Math errors?  I check every transaction to make sure it's correct, I just don't take the time to balance the checkbook.  If the numbers are going in right (which I verify), the bank's computerized calculator is going to do the math right although I can eyeball the balance to make sure it's right.  

 

Or are you talking about fraud?  As I said above, I've had a handful of fraudulent things happen, but my bank catches it before I even do (if that's what you were referring to).

[milovany]

But, I know people who don't balance theirs at all.  It seems nobody ever told them that was a thing. :blink:  

 

Obviously not if the experience of people in this thread is taken into account.  I knew for years it was a thing (and did that thing) -- I'm glad to be free from that particular thing now! :D

 

[regentrude]

I balance my account - and I've caught the bank in several very large errors which they were happy to correct when they heard about them.  Do those of you who don't balance just assume that the bank is incapable of errors? 

 

Of course banks could make errors- that's why we check the online accounts: are these all transactions we actually did? Are any transactions booked twice? Did they charge us fees where they should not have? Did they apply our payment correctly? Did the transfer the money between accounts we ordered them to?

 

What we do NOT do is checking the arithmetic by the penny, because it is extremely unlikely the arithmetic in the bank program is faulty - the errors would be incorrect bookings altogether, double transactions, unjustified fees. Those you would see.

 

[regentrude]

But, I know people who don't balance theirs at all.  It seems nobody ever told them that was a thing. :blink:   Makes me wonder what else they don't know about.

 

Or maybe they know it's a "thing" and decide it is unnecessary?

We have carbon copies of all our checks and  can see all checks on our online banking, as well as all electronic payments which constitute the majority of our financial transactions.

 

But yeah, we're probably clueless and ignorant.

[LLMom]

I don't.  Everything gets budgeted and bills paid immediately on payday, and then I take out a pre-determined amount of cash to use for things like groceries.  We don't write any checks, so there's nothing to balance.  Unless you count the initial budgeting as balancing, I suppose.

 

 

How do you not write checks?  I don't write many; I pay most of my bills online, but what about personal things like the piano teacher, tutor, gifts, etc. 

[SKL]

Or maybe they know it's a "thing" and decide it is unnecessary?

We have carbon copies of all our checks and  can see all checks on our online banking, as well as all electronic payments which constitute the majority of our financial transactions.

 

But yeah, we're probably clueless and ignorant.

 

Well, I'm going back a way to the days when we didn't have online banking.  You couldn't see your balance per the bank except when you got your monthly statement (assuming you ever looked at that).  I'm talking about people who truly never knew this was a thing, or they never bothered to figure out how to do it so they just pay the fee when a check bounces.  I had one person tell me, "oh, I wondered how I could have a negative balance when my bank statement was positive and I haven't written a check since then."

 

When I talk about people I know IRL, don't assume I'm talking about you.

[marbel]

I write two checks per month.  Everything else is done electronically.  I check my bank balances frequently, so I would see an error in time to dispute it with the bank.   There is no reason to balance the checkbook anymore.  I suppose it is something I should teach my kids but then again I'm not sure why. 

 

I'm not sure what that has to do with budgeting though anyway. 

[regentrude]

Well, I'm going back a way to the days when we didn't have online banking.  You couldn't see your balance per the bank except when you got your monthly statement (assuming you ever looked at that).  I'm talking about people who truly never knew this was a thing, or they never bothered to figure out how to do it so they just pay the fee when a check bounces.

 

Oh, I see.

Well, back THEN in the dark ages, I balanced my checkbook in the little paper booklet, too :-)

Which, btw, was completely new to me when I moved to this country; back home, we do not write checks, and there are no account booklets. You just had to keep track through the monthly statements.

 

[Mnemosyne]

I reconcile about once a month via YNAB.

[Laura Corin]

We don't.

We have electronic banking and can see all our accounts and transactions online which is entirely sufficient.

We barely write checks either; we pay bills electronically, and anything we possibly can we pay by credit card (paid off monthly)

 

Yes: any time I write a cheque, I email Husband so that when he casts an eye over the accounts, the cheque is explicable.  

 

Now, in fact he has all our expenses spreadsheeted, so he knows exactly what we spend on what, and the credit card bill feeds directly into that.  But it's not 'balancing' as such.

 

We divide money tasks - he does accounts; I do insurance.  We each spend what we think we need to (given current financial circumstances) rather than having a strict budget figure.  We are both fairly careful, so it works for us.

 

L

[SemiSweet]

Nope. All our bills are automatically paid, and we don't use checks. We do watch for suspicious charges.

 

We use an app to budget that's like an envelope system and we log what we spend in there.

[Above The Rowan]

I use e-banking only. I can't even remember the last time I needed to write a cheque. We don't even have a book of cheques at all right now. It's been years. We pay our bills online when they come in, and most of our bills are automatically debited (car payment and insurance and a couple other items where the amounts don't change). We will check it daily online and just make sure it's on the up and up but I can't imagine dealing with cheques all the time. I would go bonkers.

[SKL]

I still have some transactions that need me to keep a running total.  Some checks that may take a while to be cashed, and some bills I pay online but post-date.  (So I get the bill on the 7th, go online to pay it on the 8th, and set it up to pay around the due date, i.e., the 31st.)  I don't get regular paychecks, and the ones I get go into a different bank account, so I need to make periodic transfers in advance of big bills hitting the account.  I keep most of my $$ in a third interest-bearing account, so I try to keep only a small cushion in my checking account.  So I do need to keep track in my check register.

 

It's not that I think people are weird for not doing this.  I just thought it was a little shocking that some people IRL didn't have a concept that a check written but not cashed needs to be accounted for.  One of these people was an engineering graduate 5 years my senior, so we're not talking about dumb or young people.

[LLMom]

I think I need to at least teach my children to open their statement (or look electronically) and verify it with what they remember buying/spending. My son, 18, doesn't check. 

[Joules]

I do it the old-fashioned way...spiral notebook and adding machine.  Actually from the mid-80s on, I used a spreadsheet and then things like MacMoney and Quicken to balance, categorize, and reconcile every penny.  One year (maybe 5-10 years ago) I got irritated with paying for the update to financial software that got more bloated and less useful.  I guess I blew a fuse, so I pulled out an old notebook and have been doing it by hand ever since.  I pay my regular bills online, but I still do write lots of checks.  

[SparklyUnicorn]

I see no point in doing that.  I make sure bills are paid and deposits are credited.  I check the account to make sure I recognize all charges.  Otherwise everything is automatic.  I don't write checks anymore so everything pays the day I set it to pay with a few exceptions.  I just make sure stuff shows paid.

 

What else would there be to do?  I wouldn't even know.

 

 

[AHASRADA]

How do you not write checks? I don't write many; I pay most of my bills online, but what about personal things like the piano teacher, tutor, gifts, etc.

 

 

We only write one regular check: rent. I make sure this fixed amount stays in the account until I see it is cashed. Everything else is either paid online, in cash, credit card or debit card. The piano teacher and karate school are paid in cash. Monetary gifts are in the form of gift cards or cash.

 

I used to balance my checkbook back in the dark ages before instant online banking. I was lucky that, since I couldn't seem to pass Algebra in HS, I took Accounting instead. We learned the correct way to write a check and balance a checkbook, in addition to such vital topics as interest rates on loans, etc. That course served me so well over the years that I am insisting my children take Consumer Economics in HS.

 

I don't miss the checkbook balancing, though. I just glance at our online account every 2-3 days to make sure nothing is amiss, and also to keep track of any debit card transactions dh might have made and neglected to mention.

 

[flyingiguana]

I don't balance the checking acct, but I do write checks that take time to clear.  I just keep enough in the acct that we should be fine. 

 

I gave up balancing when I couldn't get my husband to do his fair share of it.  I think he's the one who'd really like to keep a running balance, but he's not doing it.

 

I do still write a lot of checks.  There are a lot of people who we get services from that don't do it any other way -- mostly music teachers.  And music repair people. I just dropped off a flute to be worked on this morning.  The guy has never taken credit cards because he's a small operation and doesn't want to pay the fees.  I'm happy to keep him happy.  He's a lot closer than the next closest repair person.  And I kind of like his work better.

[Night Elf]

I balance my checkbook the old fashioned way to the penny. I didn't like using software, though I cannot recall which program I tried. It seemed so cumbersome.

[Tess in the Burbs]

I balance it myself.  Quicken was maddening.  I balance when I have time...I prefer to do it often and less to calculate. If I wait too long I tend to mess up balancing and it takes forever to figure out.  Doing it more often makes it easy to do. 

[Luckymama]

But see, there are people who don't even go online to check their accounts or bother to look at their statements. I consider those of you who do check without doing the arithmetic to be balancing your accounts :)

 

It's the others that make dh, a Certified Financial Planner, bat#^%! crazy :eek:

[Tap]

I haven't balanced my checkbook in 15+ years..

 

I just keep a general idea of how much I have and don't worry about the details too much. I have a buffer amount in my account for emergencies and another amount in the savings account attached to it.  I write Maybe a total of 20 checks per year, so it isn't hard to keep track of it.  Everything else is a debit, so there really isn't anything to balance.  I check my account once a week to make sure my paycheck was correct and glance at the debits against it at the same time.  If anything seems odd, I look into it and resolve it . Usually it is a company that has the financials under one name, but the store front under another name.  I don't physically reconcile receipts or checks with balances, I just do it by memory. 

 

[goldberry]

I am a bookkeeper (so very OCD) but I don't balance my personal account any more.  I almost never write checks, and usually keep a decent cushion in there.  I check online pretty regularly.  

 

If I wrote a lot of checks, and/or was often down to my last penny, I would be more careful.

[Carrie12345]

Every other week, on paper.  But it takes 2 minutes since I only write a few checks.

[Tap]

But see, there are people who don't even go online to check their accounts or bother to look at their statements. I consider those of you who do check without doing the arithmetic to be balancing your accounts :)

 

It's the others that make dh, a Certified Financial Planner, bat#^%! crazy :eek:

LOL I actually spend less money when I am not checking on my accounts.  I know that I get paid every Thursday and that my paycheck will be $xxx, and $xxx will be automatically moved to savings by the bank for my preplanned bigger expenses like sports and bills I pay.  I know I can spend up to the deposited amount and not think twice about it.    Anything that I don't spend, just hangs out in the account.  

 

(Dh and I have separate accounts and separate expenses we pay for) 

 

When I am checking on my account frequently, I will see the excess building up and usually find something to spend it on.  LOL 

 

I developed a new habit a few years ago though, that anytime I had $1000 excess in my account, I moved it to a different account at a different credit union.  That is my out of sight/ out of mind account for expenses that are not planned for ahead of time, and are luxuries to us. ....like surprising my son with extra money towards tuition, so he can take less out in loans. etc ....or paying for a camp my daughter wanted to go to, but was a bit too expensive to justify in my normal budget.

 

 

It is funny how we all handle things differently, and what drives on person a bit nutty, makes perfect sense to others.

[DragonFaerie]

I keep a check register and write down everything there, including Bill pay stuff and debit card stuff.  I also enter it all into MS Money, and I log into my account at least weekly to keep an eye on things.  And yes, I keep it balanced down to the penny.  My mom does all this, too, but she uses an Excel spreadsheet rather than Money.  I was conditioned growing up to keep an exact account, balanced right down to the penny, and I do.