Another thread here got me curious. Does anyone’s kid actually have a checking account they need to balance. My child like me has an online account. My daughter pays all her bills from this account and can “write” checks to individuals (bank mails out the check). She uses a credit card for most of her expenses. She pay off at least weekly per my instructions. The first few weeks with more expenses she was actually paying daily to keep track of expenses and still pays any large charge off immediately (she paid for her computer by credit card and then paid if off before she even left the apple store thank to her banking app!) (We don’t use debit cards because they are not as safe and because she’s accumulate air miles for free trips with her cc)
These accounts balance themselves essentially. The money comes out right away so there is nothing to “balance” and you can check the balance on your phone before spending. Do other kids really write many checks?
My kids both have checking accounts for the occasional check they need to write. Since they write one or two every three months or so…it doesn’t tske much to balance them.
More importsnt would be keeping track of ATM and DEBIT withdrawals. But these can all be checked online…every day…and that is what my kids do.
yeah I think the old task of balancing a checkbook is passe; I still do it myself, but if you aren’t writing many checks there’s not that much to keep track of in terms of outstanding checks.
Nope. I’ve had a checking account for nearly 10 years and have never “balanced” it.
I do most of it mentally and I’ll check every few days to make sure there’s no weird charges.
Plus, I don’t remember the last time I wrote a check.
Each of our kids has a checking account. Just setting it up and the budget talks were good training as well as making them balance their accounts every month.
The only one who writes checks regularly is our oldest. He shares an apartment and other bills with a friend. It’s only a few each month but, they’ve been necessary.
Balancing one’s checkbook was a task needed when payment for checks written occurred days afterward, and ATM transactions may appear only on the next business day. Of course, one only got statements monthly, and could only get one’s current balance by going to the bank or ATM.
With instant online banking, you give up the float but there is less of the task of tracking pending transactions due to outstanding but not-yet-paid checks.
No I don’t think any of my kids balance their checking accounts. I do, because I have several credit cards that I pay off monthly, but I set them up to pay around their due date so I need to make sure there is enough money in the account to pay them. The kids write a few checks, youngest has started using an app called Venmo to pay her friends, it is tied to her checking acct.
None of my kids use checks anymore. I think my oldest, now 25 might have written one or two checks early freshman year in college, but these days they pretty much use their debit/credit bank cards for everything so no check books. I rarely write checks anymore and have almost everything set up to pay from the bank so I haven’t had a paper statement or used a check book register in at least 5 years.
My kids don’t write checks (I do, once in a blue moon - like the one I’m about to write for the rental of a grad party space) but I have taught them to check their online account to be sure the transactions are theirs and correct. There are apps for that, of course.
@Jara123 Some months DS1 pays the rent and gets reimbursed. Some months they both write separate checks. It’s the same for all their split bills. Maybe if they had a better system, they could take advantage of setting up the app you mentioned. For now, they both travel a lot and have managed everything without a set plan.
We like the monthly reconciliation because it helps them see where all their money is going through the analysis. With our high schoolers, they start out with few budget items and work up to a college budget. We have seen haircut money go to gaming instead. In that case, the son had to brown bag his lunch in order to cover it. We’re hoping to teach them to watch their pennies before the consequences get too great.
Part of balancing a checking account is doing the math to be sure it is correct, including reading receipts and adding those up.
You’d be surprised if you haven’t done it before.
DH is very old fashioned and does not do online banking. He writes a lot of checks, so it’s imperative to balance the checkbook. This is both personal and business.
I doubt my kid balances his checking account for all the reasons already mentioned.
I do still write some checks but instead of balancing I just check my account every few days and do a mental balance. I don’t even use cents anymore - just round up or down.
Im kind of anal about my account. I balance it to the penny everyday. I use my cc for points, and I transfer the money immediately, or sometimes a few days later if I dont keep up with the receipt. I use online bill pay for most bills, so I rarely write checks.
My D learned a lesson the hard way related to this recently. She had a checking account she closed, and had been using the online bill pay process to send a regular check to someone. That person had dawdled in cashing the check – but the bank had taken out the funds the day they put the paper check in the mail. So it looked like the check had cleared the account and it hadn’t when she closed it. Result: bounced check for person cashing it with an associated fee. I told my D to check her statements and see whether the bank had given her the amount of the uncashed check in the closing amount or not… Don’t know the answer yet.
D has had a checking account attached to a debit card since her 16th birthday. She has never written a check but, although I taught her better LOL, she didn’t track her ATM w/d either. One day she went to get gas and it only allowed $2±. She barely made it home. Couldn’t figure out why. Well, let’s see, if you deposit $100 and spend $98, you are left with $2. Lesson learned. This is why you need to balance your checking account, even if you don’t write “checks”!
@NEPatsGirl They don’t need to balance their account, they just need an app on their phone so they can see all the time what’s in there. If that’s too hard they can get daily texts with the balance. I really can’t imagine why one would “need” to balance their account.
Both kids have debit/checking accounts. They write few checks … DD took almost 10 years to go through her first free book of 25 checks after almost 10 years. They really have no need to balance the account because most transactions are elctronic and they frequently view it online. I still balance mine.
Funny but last week my 23 year old son taught me how to use mint.com and the app for my phone! I still balance my checkbook as I record my debit withdrawals in my checkbook register. It is vital though that people still monitor their online account (and their license registration!) because banks and companies (and MVA!) make mistakes all the time - especially with people with common names! My husband and I had an insurance company make a mistake by mixing up another couple, with the exact same names as us, and having their life insurance policy come out of our account and our policy come out of our account! Fortunately my husband caught it! MVA duplicated my license to another person, but that’s another thread!
It is vital though that people still monitor their online account (and their license registration!) because banks and companies (and MVA!) make mistakes all the time - especially with people with common names! My husband and I had an insurance company make a mistake by mixing up another couple, with the exact same names as us, and having their life insurance policy come out of our account and our policy come out of our account! Fortunately my husband caught it! MVA duplicated my license to another person, but that’s another thread!