That’s exactly what I do. I just checked out of curiosity, and the groceries I bought roughly half an hour ago have already shown up as a generic debit purchase, and by Monday it will have added a transaction number and the name of the grocery store.
I honestly don’t think I’d know how to balance a chequebook, and the advent of online banking has given me absolutely zero incentive to learn. I only write cheques to pay rent, and people tend to laugh when they see mine because I’ve had the same ones so long they’ve still got 19__ for the date line, plus my parents’ address (no one’s objected yet, and realistically, you’d probably find me just as easily by talking to my mother first as by tracking me down directly and hitting my voice mail).
We have in the past been stupid about money. We used to just look at our online bank statement and make sure things looked the way they were supposed to. Then sometimes one of us would write a check or make a transaction based on that amount and discover that the other person had done something similar. Not enough money in the checking account for both transactions, overdraft protection is all well and good, but you get charged a fee when you use it. We don’t write that many checks, but the woman who trains my horse is bad about getting my check to the bank soon. We would sometimes not realize it hadn’t been cashed and use the money for something else.
Now, we are incredibly anal about money. I need to see every transaction, cleared or not. This way, I know when I write the 2-3 checks each month (everything else is EFT or BillPay), I see that money gone from my ledger even if it takes my trainer 2 weeks to clear the check. For me it is actually satisfying to be so anal about it. I feel more in control. It’s working for us, we haven’t had to go into overdraft protection for sometime now.
I no longer get paper bank statements. I only access them online, since I couldn’t seem to convince someone to stop opening my bank statements, and my bank had a fit when I asked them to send the paper statements to a different address. When I make a debit card transaction, I put the receipt in my wallet. As soon as I get a chance, which could be minutes later when I am out of the checkout line or just before I go to bed at night, I write each day’s transactions in my checkbook register. I always know within a dollar how much money is in my checking account, and I frequently remember the exact figure. (I have no idea why. I’m as good with that as I am with phone numbers for some reason.) I never need to balance my checkbook. The spreadsheets recommended by many are good ideas. I don’t have that many bills to keep track of right now, fortunately, so I don’t do that. I might do it later when I have more stuff to keep tabs on.
Every purchase gets entered into a check register, because stupid little pieces of paper piss me off, and I like things entered in a nice set of columns so I can keep a running balance–besides, the bank gives me as many free ones as I need and I keep my debit card in my wallet right next to the register so it’s zero trouble.
Online banking checks against the register every few days to make sure I didn’t make an error writing anything down. The bank total is what I go by.
Great big wahoo thumbs up for online bill pay, I will NEVER go back! Just changed banks recently after ten years and the major incentive was a really incredibly good online money management system, it rocks the Casbah.
I absolutely do NOT carry cash for any reason, I swear to Og it’s been over two months since I actually had more than about fifty cents cash on my person at any time. Cash is for dope deals only… :eek:
And really good pizza. Our favorite pizza joint (Zelda’s, for those who know the area) only takes cash, not checks, not credit or ATM cards. Cash only. Which is fine with me. Because it’s really, really good pizza. I’d pay in all quarters if that’s what they required.
Oh yeah and paperless billing and statements whenever possible. I don’t trust those fools at the Post Orifice–heck, just today a neighbor from two blocks down gave me my year end mortgage interest statement, it ended up in his mailbox. Shoot, no reason I might need THAT, and of course no reason I might mind somebody else opening it or anything… :rolleyes:
Paperless statement with email notification with the new bank, paperless billing for the cell phone and broadband already and sure would be nice if the rest of the utilities would get it together and move into the twentieth century (let alone the frakkin’ 21st!) of online financial stuff–damned luddites don’t even have online balance check for bills or anything. My tax dollars at work no doubt!
Well, okay, yeah… There are a couple of restaurants that pretty much refuse to put in credit card readers, but then most places up here will take checks. It really freaked me out when I moved up here that gas stations would still accept checks (some of 'em still do!) it was such a culture shock coming from your vicinity to Oregon–but in a really, really GOOD way! It’s been ten years since I’ve heard the phrase “pollution standard index” and that’s just peachy keen with me…
I still carry my checkbook with me. When I use my debit card, I tuck my receipt into my check register, to record it later. I have not been able to get the online banking to work, but, at least once a week, I call the audio teller and check off the checks that have cleared, etc.
maybe it’s just my bank. The charge tentatively comes up in 1 day and is verified the 2nd.
I always thought it was odd how it took a measurable amount of time. It always seemed to me that computers could get the tentative charge on immediately and verification would be by a human.
Well, for me it’s fairly new. I’ve switched banks with in the last year twice and the last bank I switched from was JUST updating their system for real time.
I tell ya’ what pisses me off though.
When you first make a purchase it shows up on your online banking as “pending” if whatever business you purchased from doesn’t post with in three days; it disapears odd of your list.
So then if you’re absent minded like me and forget that. You look on your online banking thinking you have more money than you really have. Because said vendor can come back four or five days later and resubmit the purchase!!
Oh, and don’t get me started on those pay at the pump gas stations!!
This is how my online bank works, which is why I record all receipts in my register and always go by that, not what my online statement says.
If I always had plenty of cushion room I wouldn’t worry about it, but we run on a pretty tight budget most of the time so I want to make sure I know exactly what I have available.
I use Money instead of Quicken, but follow (not as faithfully as I should) the practices that others have already described. Everything possible goes on one credit card that is paid off every month. I consider it my “cash card” for everything except getting actual cash (that’s the only thing I use my debit card for). I have a second low-interest credit card that I occasionally use for payments that I need to spread out if I can’t get a lower-interest loan from my credit union.
Every bill that can possibly be paid automatically comes out of either the checking or credit card account. Only checks I write are occasional fundraiser ones (Girl Scout cookies and the like) and to church (which could probably be EFT also, but I’ve been too lazy to ask the business manager). Every bill with a paperfree option has been switched over so I just get a notification in e-mail.
jabiru, unfortunately, the hackers are more likely to get to your bank/credit card company than to you. As others have pointed out, it’s much more likely that paper documentation will go astray.
I think the delay in posting in the U.S. has to do with the former official lagtime for payment routing. There was a law change last year that allows checks to clear instantly. I’m sure there’s a more knowledgable Doper out there who can clear it up. Seems to me gotpasswords deals with this stuff on the credit card side. Maybe he knows how this all works…
Thanks for the link, Mr. Slant. I’ve tried using Money’s budget functionality, but it’s less intuitive than I’d like. Looks like the spreadsheet might be all I need. I’ve also thought about switching back to a spreadsheet for the accounting part of it so if Lord Ashtar (or anyone else who has something similar) would be so kind as to e-mail the template or link to one, I’d be eternally grateful…
I have sent you an email with my accounting template. This is not my budget… rather, it records day to day transactions. The only squirrelly part is that I record my deposits as NEGATIVE numbers and my withdrawals as positive numbers. It saves keystrokes, since I have no more than five deposits per month. Still weird though.
I left some sample transactions in, but removed anything personal.
Same here, except I don’t bank with Bank of America.
Some of you are really on top of things. I just don’t see a need to track all my transactions so closely. There’s no way I could ever spend more than I have in my checking account using my debit card. My bank imposes a $1800 (or is it $1500?) daily limit for debit cards and a $500 (or something–it may be higher now) a day per limit for ATM withdrawals. If the need arises to spend more (car repair, appliance purchase, sale at Barneys), I just use a credit card.
Did I fall asleep and wake up in 1995? If so, how come I’m not at my 1995 weight?
I have taken advantage of every electronic convenience my banks have offered since I started having demand deposit accounts (aka DDA, checking accounts). I’ve always hated having checks. I hate writing checks for anything. Two dozen years ago, before the age of universal debit cards, I hated accepting checks at my retail job. I write less than a dozen per year. I consider that too many.
Now, I’m fortunate enough that, day-to-day, I’m in little danger of overdrawing. Once a week, I’ll download my transactions to MS Money. I do this not because I need to know my balance, but because if I don’t, it takes too long to categorize all my transactions. I can be anal. I keep track of cash I spend in a spreadsheet, so that I can properly categorize where my ATM withdrawals go.
Bill paying is automated. Either I have them directly pull from my account, or I’ve set up an automatic transfer from my bank. The only time I ever think about writing a check are for newspaper delivery and phone orders to the butcher (and only if I don’t have enough cash on hand). Here’s a man who brings meat right to my door with just a phone call. Why would I want to burden him with a check? I’m ashamed of myself when I don’t plan my cash right and have to write the check (but not so ashamed that I wouldn’t call for meat).
For those of you with Bank Of America - there is a cool new program you can sign up for. It is called Keep The Change. Every purchase you make with a Debit Card (not credit card) is rounded up and the change is moved into a separate savings account. For instance, if you buy something for $5.30 - the total is automatically rounded up to $6.00 and the 70 cents is moved to your savings account - and Bank of America matches that amount, so actually, $1.40 is added to your savings account!
It is a relatively new program, but a painless way to save a little money on the side.
Oh, and I am a huge fan on on-line banking. You can see every charge, pay your bills, order checks - any time of day and no line. Love it.
I do what a lot of the others have suggested; I keep all receipts in my wallet, and every couple of days I enter them into Quicken. Then I download transactions, and look for anomalies. Usually it’s something I forgot about, but I have spotted errors on a couple of occasions. In fact, if it wasn’t for online banking and frequent downloads, we might have gone a week or more with our account being drained when someone cloned our debit card. As it was, we spotted it within two days and could sic the bank on the problem right away.
I’m also pretty anal about categorizing expenditures (with the exception of cash, although even that I’ll categorize if there is a sufficiently large transaction). This came in handy on this year’s tax return. Living in Florida, there is no state income tax. Therefore, we can deduct sales tax (in lieu of state income tax) from our federal return. Since I had kept pretty accurate track through the year, I was able to print a report from Quicken showing all sales tax paid during the year, which proved to be over twice what the IRS tables would have suggested.
