Nope, haven’t in ages. We hardly ever write checks (bills all paid online) so we just keep an eye on the online bank statement every now and then to make sure nothing weird shows up.
I haven’t balanced mine in decades and the majority of debits are automatic I set up with creditors. Currently, I receive an email for any debit from my account over $1.00 so that keeps my apprised of what’s going out on a daily basis. I review my account online about once a week but have never noticed anything unusual. I probably write a total of about 5 paper checks annually.
What bank would give anyone a mortgage based on sending them checks every month? Every mortgage I’ve had required automatic withdrawal from a bank account.
On the subject of the OP, I’ve never balanced a bank account or anything else, and I really don’t see the point. I treat bank accounts the same way as credit card statements – I regularly scan them to see monthly transactions. In an era where checks are almost completely obsolete, “balancing” doesn’t really even mean anything. My regular transaction scans are just to see if some thief has been stealing money from me. In the case of my checking account, I always suspect it, but the thief always turns out to be me. In the case of one credit card that is dedicated to miscellaneous small purchases, including all internet purchases, on a few rare occasions there have been unauthorized transactions, but they’ve been for small amounts and look more like errors than thievery.
I don’t understand–why do you need to balance the account? What is there for you to calculate?
You say that everything is automatic, so I would assume that the balance shown should always be accurate.( Except for that one check you write every couple months.)
I manage my account exactly the same as you have described…and I haven’t balanced my checkbook for 40 years. And I don’t do online banking— I just pull a printout from the bank machine, read the bottom line…and I know that it is always up-to-date and true.
If I happened to have written a check the day before, well yeah, I know that there is one number which doesn’t show up on the printout yet. But that’s very rare, and I remember it easily, so I can “balance” the account in my head.
I think this was our last holdout. His son eventually set him up to accept e-transfers straight into his bank account.
I haven’t used paper cheques for umpteen years. Regular bills are done online, and most day-to-day stuff is on my debit card (credit card for big purchases and anything where the extra cover/insurance would be useful).
But I do do a monthly online check of transactions, copying them into a spreadsheet adding a broad categorisation* and projecting forward to a 12-month so that I can see whether there’s any risk of overspending and where I might need to rein it in. I’ve never yet spotted anything questionable in the bank’s records.
*which, e g , tells me that, 15 years ago, about 20% of my spending was in cash, but now it’s around 3%.
My son has a “mortgage” from a lender that he cannot pay by automatic withdrawal - he must mail a check. ( it’s technically not a mortgage because it’s for a co-op, not a house or a condo). While I pay mine by automatic withdrawal, I am not required to - and I refinanced a few years ago, so it’s not a 1980 something mortgage.
As far as what do I use checks for - to pay for the garage I rent from a neighbor, my husband sometimes uses checks to pay for his bowling leagues, for wedding/birthday/Christmas gifts and for any other transactions where the other party can’t or won’t accept a credit card or Venmo/Zelle or an electronic payment and I don’t want to pay cash. I could set up a payment from my bank to the garage landlord - but that just mans the bank will mail him a check.
Like many others, I just monitor my account on line. Back in the olden days, I wrote checks for just about everything and I was meticulous about keeping track of every penny. These days, if I write half a dozen checks a year, it’s a lot, since most places that bill me can be paid online. So when I do write one, I’ll log into my account more frequently to see that it’s cleared, but that’s about it.
I only have a checking account for the increasingly rare instance where only checks are accepted. So no, I add money to the account to maintain a certain balance, but other than that I never tinker with it.
I’m a bookkeeper and balance a lot of bank accounts at work. I used to use QB and balance my account to the penny, but I don’t bother anymore. I just look at my account frequently on my phone. It’s so easy with face recognition. I do still write a check for the park rent each month because it takes too long for my bank to pay them with bill pay and I get the bill too close to the due date.
Considering I don’t actually write checks except in vanishingly rare situations, what’s the point of actually keeping the checkbook? That sounds like a lot of work that the bank already does for you.
I do periodically scan the transactions and make sure that my wife and I recognize all the charges, but that’s about it.
I pay my mortgage by check. It’s done through a regional bank, and they don’t accept electronic mortgage payments unless you also have a checking account with them (we do not). I tried to set up online payments through my main bank’s online bill pay, but their system did not recognize the address of the regional bank that holds the mortgage. Thus, checks.
The landscaping company that mows our lawn also wants to be paid by check, as well as the occasional plumber, tree-trimmer, that kind of thing.
I don’t do a full-scale “balancing” in the old sense, but I do keep a paper record so that I have an accurate picture of how much is actually in my account, since it takes awhile for those outstanding checks to clear (the landscapers, in particular, seem to wait until near the end of each month to cash the check).
One of my daily routines is to compare my paper record with the bank’s online record. This turns out to be a good thing, since it once allowed me to spot a bogus charge and realize that someone had gotten ahold of my debit card number. Thanks to my anal “check every day” practices, I was able to report the bogus charge almost immediately, potentially keeping my whole checking account from being drained.
These days I pay for almost everything via credit card (pay it off in full every month, kids!), and I also keep an eye on that for any suspicious charges.
Back in 2008 I got an email one day that said your bank is now dead, you are now a member of the Chase family and i’ve been with Chase ever since. Did bank of America not die?
Not at all. BofA appears to be healthy and well.
I keep track of all of my expenses. I can look at it to know when I will need to take more money out of my investments to add to it. I categorize the expenses for which will be write offs for taxes. I can spot things that are incorrect and get charge backs (which honestly is very rare, it’s much more common for a charge not to happen). It’s easier for me to find something from the past to check on it by doing a search on quick books. I’m anal about the accounting.
I guess it was just my branch, because even the building turned into a chase bank.
I check my account online pretty much everyday and can account for every transaction that is posted. Haven’t written a check in I don’t know how many years or balanced a checkbook since probably the mid-2000s.
Same here. I remember years ago sitting down with my check register and the bank statement. I would be stressed out if it didn’t come out to the penny. I’m glad that chore is no more.
I still use checks regularly, though not nearly as much as I used to. Looking at my register, here’s where I used them over the last few months:
- The most common use: I pay my house cleaner with a check every two weeks.
- To the US government, to renew a passport. They only take checks.
- Gifts to family and friends.
- One time bills where it’s faster to write a check once then to enter the information into the computer.
I keep a checkbook on a spreadsheet (Apple Numbers, in fact, but anything else would do), with three running balances: the at-time-of-writing balance, the current balance from checking the account online balance, and the latest-statement balance.