This is inspired by a thread in the Pit right now in which a poster is complaining of someone who took some of his checks and stole $6,000 of his money over a period of months.
Everyone is amazed that he didn’t manage to miss this amount of money (so am I). But several posters made comments like, “Don’t you ever balance your check book?” and “I balance my account every few days.”
Now I’m feeling lame. I never balance my check book. Never.
Am I alone in being fiscally irresponsible?
Every month, to the penny. I use Quicken and pay my bills on-line, so this takes me about 2 minutes, but even when I didn’t and wrote all my checks by hand, I always balanced my checkbook every month.
Nope. Not balancing is the best thing that ever happened to me!
I used to do it every month, and I was one of those people who had to balance to the penny, or else I’d re-do all my math, call the bank, etc…
Now that I can access my checking account online (through the bank’s website) I’ve realized there’s no point to actually “balancing” in the old sense. I can see right there on the screen what’s cleared and what’s happened, updated daily if not more often. Of course I do note down the checks that I write, but I don’t bother to total the register anymore. It’s great!
Yep, I’m with masonite. I pay all my bills online, so I know they will all clear my account on the same day. I then know how much disposable income I have, and when I spend on the check card, I just keep a mental total of it. I always have an idea within $5 of how much is in my account. I figure if someone wants to rip me off for $3.50, more power to 'em.
I haven’t hand writted a check in probably a year or more now.
Every single morning. It’s part of my routine.
I use Quicken to record all my transactions then cross check it against my account online while I let the dogs out (woof! Woof, woof!) abotu 5:15AM. Takes no time at all.
I reconcile with Quicken almost daily. At least 3-4 times a week. I know it sounds sick but I like to know immediately when everything clears. I’m a little (ok, a lot) OCD and I have a thing for numbers. It keeps me happy to have it all balanced.
Never. In fact, I hate dealing with checks, in general; the only reason I ever write checks is when I have to deal with bills which can’t be paid by credit or debit. In general, I’ll use my bank’s online system to keep tabs on my account transactions, though I don’t check this as often as I probably should.
If I actively used my checkbook the way many do, I probably would feel more of an urge to balance it, but there you go.
Unless you have to live down to the cent I’ll tell you a particularly interesting way of reconciling a checkbook (and it saves you money incedentally, to boot.)
You DO have to check your monthly bank statement, but just to make sure that there are no unknown/forgotten debts.
Anyway, get a slip of paper. Stick it in your wallet, purse, something you carry with you all the time. I personally use a little program on my Pilot, but whatever. Start with your balance, rounded to the nearest $5. Every time you pay for something, when you record it you round up to the nearest $5. Phone $47.23 = phone $50. I think you get the idea. You’ll “keep” between 0 to 499 cents per transaction.
Believe me, it adds up. Especially if you drive a lot!
At the end of the year (preferrably Dec 31) check your balance. You should have a good positive discrepancy between what the bank says and what your personal balance says. Voila, free money! 
I cannot believe either that an unauthorized transaction would go unnoticed for 6 months. I always balance all of my accounts, shortly after I get the statement. I try to keep track by recording and subtracting each check I write, but since there are two of us on the account, it’s never accurate anyway. Only once did I find an unauthorized transaction – it was a mysterious debit using an ATM card in a place we had not been that day. No cards had been stolen. The bank credited us with the amount, but they never told us if they found out any details about why it happened, and it was just that one time. Weird.
I never do. My bank’s website is incredibly detailed. For example, if I don’t remember who I wrote the check to, I can click on a link and a scanned copy of the check (front and back) will pop up. So, when our apartment complex tried to say we didn’t pay our rent, I printed up a copy of the check and handed it to them. I check my balance every couple of days so, presumably, I’d notice any discrepency or large purchase. So if they got my card and I suddenly started shopping at, I dunno, Macy’s, I’d know fairly soon.
Online banking and Quicken are the best things to happen to me.
I just checked - the last transaction I actually wrote in my checkbook’s paper check register was on May 21, 1994.
I keep every ATM and debit transaction reciept for the week in my wallet. On the weekend, usually early Saturday morning, right before doing the grocery shopping, I enter all the transactions that are in my wallet into Quicken. Then I do a download and PRESTO - instant update of everything that’s going on with my account. I have a LOT of autodeducts and electronic transactions. Out of roughly 100 to 150 transactions per month, maybe 8-10 of those are checks.
Now, you have to understand, however, that even before online banking and Quicken, I did most of my banking math in my head. I still do this today - I always have a pretty good approximation of what’s in my bank account in my head. For instance, right now, I can tell you what my checking account balance is and if I check it online right now, the actual amount will probably be within about $50 of what’s in my head. It’s close enough for me - I’ve had two overdrafts in the last ten years.
The banker in my forces me to reconcile my checkbook once a week or so. I used to work for a fairly anal bank, and my daily work (my group handled the bank-by-mail deposits) had to come out to the penny.
And when I was a supermarket cashier, my till had to come out perfectly and only once, it didn’t There was a fiscal incentive - off by more than a dime and it was noticed. Out by more than a buck, and it was apt to be taken out of one’s pay. The one time my drawer was off, it was short $125 and change. Oddly enough, a drawer from the deli was over by the exact amount. Obviously, something got transposed in accounting, but the deli cashier and I still got hassled about it.
With the checkbook, what’ll drive me nuts is differences in what the online system shows as posted balance vs “available” balance vs what’s in the checkbook. Gas pumps and restaurants are prime offenders - a lot of pumps hit your account for $1 upfront just to validate the card, then the rest of the purchase posts a day or two later when the gas station “closes their batch” on the card sales. Likewise for restaurants - however much you tip will post later when the batch closes.
I do some stuff online, but otherwise, call me old school-I reconcile business and personal accounts every month, to the penny, and usually know within a few bucks how much I have in a given account.
Then again, I’ve done finance management in the pre-computer days that required a 13 column ledger.
Heehee.
nope I only write about 5 checks a month, to the grocery store and any I have to mail. I look at the statement at the end of the month, and if anything’s out of the ordinary, I’ll look into it.
the only problem I have had is with auto-pay. Now federal laws only permit 6 withdrawals/deposits automatically into your savings/checking acct each, each month. I’ve gone over this twice this year and it’s a real hassle.
Plus it’s a hassle knowing how much was paid to this credit card company, and the gas bill, etc. I could do it, but it’s so less stressful not.
But I do know within $400 how much is in my checking acct…
No balancing. I keep track online though, so I would notice if someone were removing large quantities of my moohlah.
I do all my banking online. I check my balance several times a week and always know what checks have been sent, what have been cashed and how much money I have in my account.
HOWEVER, before the internet, I never balanced my checkbook.
I write all cheques, withdrawals and deposits in my chequebook and do the math each time. I verify the balance at least once per month via the toll-free phone number.
My other account bears interest. I rarely use it (only when I need to write a large cheque), but I do write the amount down and do the math. I only add the interest when I think of it, and use the TLAR* method when the monthly statements come.
[sub]***** TLAR = “That Looks About Right”[/sub]
If I take my check register and set it just right across my outstretched forefinger, I can balance it.
Thanks… I’ll be here all week.
Anyways… even before all my banking went online I never physically balanced my checkbook… I have a fairly accurate check register in my head that is always within a few pennies.
Re: the OP… I can’t see how anyone would not realize that large sums of money were being drained from their account unless they (a) didn’t use the account and (b) never read their statements or checked online.
I balance my finances in excruciating detail on the computer.
This probably should have given me extra points the “How Geeky are you?” thread.
Don’t feel bad, autz. You may be fiscally irresponsible, but you’re not alone.
I have carbon checks, but I only write abour four a month for the bills I have to mail (water, phone, electricity, and cable). Everything else is debit card, with which I must be very, very careful. I do have a general idea of how much money is in my checking account by using the “hundred method” - “There’s about seven hundred” or “Oh, I think I’m down to about two hundred”, etc. etc. I could get ripped off a hundred dollars and not notice for a little while. If I have to make a big purchase, I go to my online banking page and verify that the amount is what I think it is.
Every month, I get my mailed statement, and I open it and look at all the transactions. Since most of my debit transactions are Wal-Mart and the grocery store, it’s not too hard to figure out where they all came from. If it looks right, I say, “That looks right,” and throw it away.
That being said, I’ve never bounced a check. Muhahahaha.