Is this where I report I have never ever balanced my checkbook?
My husband and I do not share money “sources” - one reason is I don’t balance my checkbook, and he does his to the penny. I am (and he would agree with this) “better” with money than he is, I have just never balanced my checkbook. I do look at the ins and outs when the statement comes.
8 Likes
I just wrote a check today to the handyman who replaced a bathroom faucet. He would have taken cash or venmo, but I didn’t have the cash and I don’t do venmo.
I had last written one to a friend for a birthday gift and it got lost in the mail so I’m taking that as ‘not a check.’ The last one before that was to a friend who paid for the vacation lodging that she paid for, and before that for bridge club lessons. That’s if for the last year. Oh, except the $2.90 for the toll road because I was in the wrong lane.
2 Likes
Question for those of you who receive text or email notices from your bank whenever charges above a specified amount are made: We recently started that service. The two times we’ve gone out to dinner, the charge notice has been immediate, and includes food/drink. However, the total amount shown did not include tip. Are tips calculated and billed separately and later?
Sometimes the restaurant runs the bill through on your card before you add the tip (so when you get the bill slip back to sign). It is a temporary hold, which is then replaced by the correct total amount after you sign and add the tip.
6 Likes
I used to work with someone who never balanced her checkbook (she was a supervisor, so a bit older than I). She said she’d just let it go, and then after a while open a new account.
I took over this duty when we got married - I am kind of math phobic, so it was an interesting life choice lol. But there is nothing worse than ending up a penny off. It’s usually a math error on my part, but 
5 Likes
These days we have a decent buffer in the checking account. So I no longer keep a running balance in the checkbook register. Early in the month, I usually do record the autodeposits and autowithdrawals to that point and calculate balance. After end of month, I print the statement from website (2-up). Then I do recording / reconcillation.
The more important thing I do (mentioning again, in case new folks on this thread) is tally up the “outflow” (autopays + Visa payment + checks + cash) datapoint for our financial tracking. Started doing that 8 years before we retired, and it was really helpful to have a pulse on our after-tax income needs. (We did have to have a side plan for car purchase, which we do with cash.)
3 Likes
I was reluctant but finally started doing auto-pay for our CCards. I still look over the charges and make sure they are accurate and that we did make the purchases we are charged with. So far, we have only found two or so errors in our many decades of charging. One was fraud by someone at a hotel and we got that card canceled and reissued. One was a small charge we never made so we got that card canceled and reissued as well.
I send a quarterly check to our landline/internet provider because it forces me to look at the bill and re-negotiate with them every time they try to raise the rate at the end of 12 months. It’s a pain in the neck but it makes a difference and they really try to jack up the rate if you don’t pay attention.
Other utilities we have on autopay and have never had any problems.
I have 15 nieces & nephews and 8 grand nieces and nephews and write gift checks for them (but once in awhile give them cash).
I have to write checks on our business checking for our rental properties when we have maintenance done on it, so that’s quite a few checks. If they take credit cards (without any extra charge), we will use credit cards.
1 Like
By the time our Visa bill comes, any fraud is likely to have already been caught by the Chase monitoring (better all the time) and my alerts each time it is used. But I still pay my monthly bill manually/online in case there is not enough money in the checking account (some bills can be very big, especially after a vacation!) to cover autopay.
Does anyone have a better explanation how tips work when receiving auto-alerts from a charge card?
We recently signed up for charge-card notification service, and have had numerous odd (to us) notices.
- First charge to a retail shop had no issues – exactly the same as the receipt. Later notices (groceries, retail shops, etc. have all been uneventful). HOWEVER:
- Second charge to an electronic store and online journal order resulted in double notices. We verified with our bank statement online later that we were only charged once, so no problem (although don’t fully understand why double alert notices for some charges and not others).
Next (3) charges to food/ drink establishments varied in different ways.
- First food alert did not include tip – just the bill (with taxes). We thought perhaps tips are not part of the auto-alert, so watched for what was charged on our online bank statement. BUT, when we checked the bank statement online a few days later, we were charged MORE than the total we signed for. (a service charge somewhere? Someone in-house adding to our tip? ). This was a small amount (coffee shop), and we’ve visited this establishment numerous times, so not a big deal. We just want to understand how it all works!
- Next food notification was for food & drink. We signed one bill which included food,drink,taxes and tip, and rounded up to an even amount. Auto notification sent two alerts. One was approximate food only total (no tip, no drinks). Other was an even $10. Online bank statement indicated the same, but eventually changed to match exactly what we signed (including tip). However $10 is still in “pending” column.
- Next visit was for drink only. Two notifications: One for the drink. The other notice was for an even $10. Final bank statement matches what we signed. $10 charge gone.
I’m not sure if all this is normal, or if I need to discuss with bank. Do food/drink establishments “test” your card first (the recurring $10 charge)? Or do they put a hold (like car rental companies), that is removed when you pay your bill? Why are tips not included in the alert? Obviously, the bank statement “evolves” after-the fact, and the alerts do not always equal your signed receipt. Why do some alerts generate double notices, but most do not?
Is this credit card with a smaller bank? Most of those I’ve never had happen, but my credit cards are with USAA, Amex and capital one.
H has a chase amazon Visa card. Sometimes it’s wacky and give us 2-4 notices for one charge that only rings up online. After the first couple of times, I generally ignore it, though I check the final charge online later (as usual). This phenomenon isn’t normal. It happens maybe a few times a year.
The tip thing. Normally, I just get a notice of the bill minus the tip. If I want to see the final charge I go online later in a couple of days. There are a few restaurants that won’t ring my card through until I put the tip on there. This normally happens when I’m standing at the register with it, I write it on there, and then they swipe it through. Then my notice shows the tipped charge.
I’ve never had a credit card send me partial notifications, but I could see my local bank doing something wacky like that. Their online banking stuff is very crude
In places that take tips (e.g. restaurants, etc.), when you give them your card they swipe it in a mode of “pre-approval but not final amount” and they enter the amount that is currently on the bill that they’ve presented to you. Then you add your tip and hand the bill back to them.
They need to do a “pre-approval but not final amount” swipe to ensure that your card is at least valid for the amount that will cover the meal and tax while you are there in front of them. (For if your card is declined, then they have recourse to ask for another card or cash.)
Let’s say your meal was $50, plus $5 tax. So the waiter runs your card for $55 in that pre-approval mode. So if you’ve chosen to get an alert for every transaction, you’re going to get an alert for $55.
But then—typically at the end of the day (or at the end of a waiter’s shift)—they take all the receipts and adjust the final amounts to now include the tip. So let’s say you tipped $10, so when they are “running the batch” they adjust that initial charge, and do a final charge of your card for $65.
So you get a second alert for $65, your actual charge.
Frequently in restaurants this final amount can show up a day or more later, not because they’re lax in running it, but because waiters and managers are running the batches for their dinner service close to midnight, and so it can show up the next day. When you are dining on Fridays and on weekends, sometimes those final complete charges get bumped to appearing on Monday or Tuesday.
This “pre-approval but not final amount” is also how gas stations will pre-swipe your card and put in guesstimated high amount if you say you’d like a fill up. They can’t know looking at your car how much that might be, and so if they waited to swipe your card until after you put the gas in and your card was declined, they’d be stuck. So they’ll swipe your card and put in a number like $100 to ensure you have approval for that much of a charge, and then after the gas is pumped they’ll adjust the charge to the actual amount.
3 Likes
One possible explanation for this one - I’ve noticed that I can get two texts for the same charge when it fall into more than one category I’ve requested notifications for. Like “Charge over $xxx” and “Card not present”. Could it possibly be something like that?
1 Like
Also if it is a debit card they can put an estimated hold on it, like if you are buying gas they’ll put a $75 hold on the card, then you pump, and at some later time the $45 actual amount you bought is taken out of your account and the $75 is released.
Thus why I never buy gas with a debit card.
Chase - so definitely not a small bank. It appears that food establishments just take different approaches. I think our first “food” card (to the coffee shop) was the oddity, and may have been someone bumping it up. No service charge indicated. No bad handwriting for cause. No reason to complain because it just wasn’t enough to question (yet). We’ll likely try again and see if it repeats.
Thanks @blueberriesforsal for such a thorough explanation!
1 Like