I balance our accounts every weekend. I don’t use the checkbook, which, like others, probably comes out of the drawer just a handful times a year.
I use Google docs. We have a Monthly Balance, Assets, College, and Passwords doc. If I die, it should be easy to take over and see what I’ve done and where to go. The Monthly Balance sheet has hundreds of tabs because I start a new one every month.
I reconcile the Monthly Balance sheet because I want to know what we have leftover to throw into various taxable accounts. Of course we save directly immediately, but most months we spend less and have extra to throw in. Other times, like September when everything is due, I have to look up what is coming or automatically charged (car, homeowners insurance premium for the year) and pull from the designated savings fund to cover the difference.
If we don’t spend the money, I have plans for it and this is my system.
This is how simple my life has gotten…These are the bills I pay: mortgage, coop maintenance, internet, mobile phone, TV streaming, and my 2 credit card bills. My credit card bills are for grocery, eating out, travel, etc.
I don’t do auto pay because I like to review my bills before I pay. I have found too many times that they have made errors. It’s hard to get money back after it’s taken out of my account.
When kids were still in the house and I was married, my finance was more complicated. There were always some unexpected expenses, so I had to keep a closer eye on my account. But now I rarely pay attention to it - I get an alert every time there is a transaction on any of my accounts.
We have few actual paper check anymore, but that checking account is still get Grand Central station for our finances. Of course MANY of our transactions are now on the jumbo Visa bill. I pay it online, but manually (after reviewing). I admire people who track spending real time via spreadsheets etc. But for us it is enough to do monthly checking account balancing (and tally of categories - cash, checks, autopays, VISA). Plus annual study of our Chase VISA reports, broken down by category.
I check online bank account and credit cards every few days to make sure everything is correct. Most bills are autopay or I pay them electronically through my banking app. I write checks for property taxes because they charge a fee for credit card and to my hairdresser. I don’t miss reconciling checkbooks.
You know…I’ve been thinking about this. I wrote exactly three checks per month. Two are for exactly the same amount. One is only during the summer season to my landscaper who doesn’t accept any other kid of payment.
And I do ATM withdrawals…and I do check those on my monthly statement.
Really…what is there to “balance”.
I should add…my monthly deposits are the same too…
Checkbook? What’s that?
I think I write less than 10 physical checks a year.
Like some of the others above, I keep a watch on my checking account and credit card account every couple of days - though that’s mostly to ensure there’s no fraudulent entries.
Balancing a checkbook used to be useful when it could be weeks or months from the point you wrote the check to the time it hit the account, so you wanted to make sure sufficient funds were in the account to cover any checks. With just about everything being EFT and pretty real time, that need has gone away IMO.
I write a few checks monthly because the recipients do not have autopay. I use personal finance software (Quicken competitor) to keep track of all of my expenses and accounts, e.g. bank checking, savings, credit cards, loans, etc. I reconcile all of the accounts regularly, and monitor the active ones like checking and credit cards on a near daily basis (almost OCDish).
Very recently I saw when an insurance company debited an annual payment (a large amount), and then mistakenly debited again. They then credited my account for the second debit. However, the second debit exceeded my overdraft protection, so I was charged a NSF fee, and the second debit was never completed. It took a couple of phone calls to the bank and the insurance company to straighten things out. The insurance company sent out a letter a month later that explained what they did and asked for a check if the second debit was blocked for NSF. They did not offer to refund any NSF fee.
Finally, a few years ago I was looking at my credit card account and saw a recent expense from a town in a different part of the country. I asked, but my spouse didn’t recognize the expense. Spouse said check with son (authorized user) who was at school in the same state. Son said, Hey, I was with some friends and just paid for a meal there. I’m just walking out to the parking lot!!. So, I keep a very close watch.
I am very lax regarding regular expense management. I have never balanced a checkbook and have never set a budget. We have various credit cards and we still have the paper statements sent to our house so either my husband or I read through the charges monthly. We’ve only come across less than a dozen disputes in our 50+ years of cc use. I do get alerts whenever cc charges are made without the card present. I’ve had the most problems with our mobile phone bills.
Since we travel so frequently, all my accounts including home utilities are on auto-pay.
To clarify . . .when I saw balance my checkbook, I don’t mean get out the physical checkbook and cross of info. I reconcile electronically on Quicken. I write hardly any checks, but a lot of transactions flow through there - the credit card payments, some auto-debits, salary deposits etc so I do like to go through and make sure all the transactions are correct.
I also reconcile my credit card statements - this way I can catch any duplicate charges or errors.
Although I “write” very few checks (cleaning lady and hairdresser), there are still many bills and venmo/paypal and ATM/cash withdrawals (my DH does that, not me) that are paid from my bank account and deposits into the account, so I do review it. The cr card bills are pretty high these days, so I watch the cashflow as I move $ to a higher online savings when there is excess, and move some back if/when needed. I like to know how much is there, and yes I balance it.
I do write checks—often for gifts to great nieces & great nephews and close family friends. Also I write checks where there are fees for using CCards (DMV, insurance, and others).
I have not written a check in years and years. My landscaper requires a check but I have the bank send it so it comes out of my account instantly (its put back in and the check voided if not cashed in 90 days. ) I have paid a few other contractors this way or have paid some things that require a fee for a cc. But I NEVER myself write the check. There is just never a reason for me to write a check and thus no reason to ever balance my check book. I look at my bank account daily in a quick check. It’s just a habit.
I hated that! Then for a while, our banks included teeny copies of all of our checks in the bank statement. That’s not done anymore either. If I need a copy of a check, all I need to do is type in the check number. If it’s been cashed, it will appear and I can print both sides. I needed to do that exactly ONE time.
LOL - When I was a kid, my mother used to have me order the cancelled checks before she balanced the checkbook. I have really liked having check carbons. Though admittedly not as critical as back in the days when Mom would plead Dad to remember what check he wrote without entering into the register.
It’s been fun to read the various feedback here. Really there is no right or wrong method to track or monitor finances…. except perhaps for no method.
I’ve had a bit of fraud on my credit cards. My Chase cards are set to notify me of any transactions over $0.12. Yes, twelve cents. I’ve had $1.xx tried several times. I got a new Amex this year, and the minimum alert is $10. Not too happy about that. Chase now has me set up so that no card’s address or name can be changed online; person has to call in with PIN I’ve set up. Including me.
And, yes, I still balance our personal checkbook and my office account every month. Not in the actual book, but the desktop. I track home on quicken and office on Quickbooks.
