Do people really still use chequebooks? I maybe write one cheque a year these days - my current chequebook dates from 2004 and is still more than half full.
I just tend to check my balance, either online or at an ATM, every week or two. If it is substantially more or less than the ballpark figure I have in my head, then I’ll go through the online statement to make sure I recognise the transactions and that all bills have been paid. I certainly don’t compare it to receipts etc though.
ummmm–I don’t get it.
Why do you balance a checkbook these days? I haven’t done it for 25 years, since the ATM was invented.
I write 1 or 2 checks each month. Mostly I withdraw cash from the machine, and my balance is displayed right there in front of my face every time. Why the need to perform sophisticated feats of higher math?
All I need to do is remember that I wrote a check last week; I can do the subtraction in my head.
This is why I was using it, but once I discovered mint.com I just started using them for the reports. I get to see pretty pie charts of my spending habits and it automatically filters all the transactions through so I don’t have manually enter things.
It was shocking to see how much I spend eating out. The cool thing with mint.com though is that I can set budgets for that, and it’ll show me when I’m getting close to that amount and when I’ve gone over.
Because I need to know EXACTLY how much money I have in the account. To the penny. The balance displayed doesn’t include charges that haven’t gone through yet. That includes uncleared checks as well as electronic payments that have been scheduled but not yet paid.
The amount of money that blows through my account every month - automatic payments for this and that, automatic withdrawals, deposits - blows my mind sometimes.
Day by day, I don’t know to the nearest thousand how much is in there. It is difficult to say, given that the mortgage payment is subtracted biweekly, property taxes and utilities are all subtracted on their own schedule.
I really should keep better track.
This, precisely. I get all itchy if I don’t know how much is there or what charges have cleared (or haven’t).
We’ve been living just barely within our means for some time now, and have mountains of debt (mostly) from our wedding, so we balance a Google spreadsheet several times a week – it’s also broken down into categories, and each category has an amount we’re supposed to stick to each month.
The complicating factor is that we’re in Bank of America’s “Keep The Change” program which means that any debit card transaction gets rounded up, with that amount going into savings. One way it helps is that most transactions are just straight-up dollar amounts, but the problem is sometimes you forget which ones are rounded and which aren’t. But if I go into it a few times a week, I’m generally only a few cents off.
I hope that we’ll soon be in a place where this whole routine isn’t necessary, but I suspect I’ll do it even then, just out of habit.
Well, yes. Depends on where you live and your means, but I’ve known many that pay by check. Again, I rent. None of my renters have allowed me to do automatic drafts from my bank account to somewhere else. It’s check only. Those are at least 12 checks per year.
Add to that, when I lived with roomates, that we split the utilities, and I had to pay my part… again, with check.
And, as unreal as it sounds (it sounded weird to me the first time it happened, too!), there are places where, if you try to pay online, they’ll add an extra fee. I’m sorry, but that fee, although minor for some, is enough for making me just write the check and mail it.
Seriously, those questions do sound a bit arrogant. I know I sometimes get on my parents’ case for not taking advantage of the technology options available, but I do realize that they are not always available even if we want them.
I tell my bank to send a check and have it arrive by a certain date, same as with my other bills. There’s no difference on my end between sending a check and a direct transfer to their account other than the time it takes for the money to move. Never had a problem with it, and I don’t have to buy stamps and envelopes. I guess not all banks do this.
Since I’m on a grad student budget, I keep track of everything to the penny and am a little obsessive about it. I keep two Excel spreadsheets that I update whenever I spend (or receive) money. One is PearBudget, where I keep track of how much I spend in different categories, including things I pay for with cash. The other one is just a simple tally of what’s in my checking account and where the money goes to. I update it whenever money goes in or out, and I reconcile it with what my bank website says once a week or so to check exchange rates, make sure nothing weird is going on, etc. I’ve had that one since I started college; I started using PearBudget last summer when I moved out of my parents’ house.
You don’t have a choice for me, which is that my wife does it–every month, religiously. When I got married, my wife was horrified to discover that I was satisfied if it balanced within $5. I was horrified that she tore up her canceled checks and threw them away. I broke her of that practice, but she insisted on balancing to the penny every month and now, 46 years later, she still does and canceled checks are but a dim memory.
These are the things that keep me writing checks at least a few times a year (also rent gets a check for various reasons, so I average probably about 20-25 checks per year). In Kansas it seems that all the state agencies as well as the school district charges a “convenience fee” for paying online. For the school is is only $3.00 per transaction, but when you consider school lunches (what I am usually adding to an account online) are $2.25, that is like paying for more than a full extra lunch and it just doesn’t seem right. The “Board of Healing Arts” for (medical) license renewal tacks on a fee if paid online, and motor vehicle registration does as well (they also charge an outrageous, even higher convenience fee if you use your card in person at the DMV to re-register).
$3.00 here and there is not much, but considering I have 2 kids in school who need their lunch accounts kept full (I tried putting enough in each for the whole semester but then they think it is extra money and end up buying 6 and 7 dollar lunches with all the ala carte items) two vehicles to register, and a couple of different licenses to keep current, it can easily cost me more than $100/year just in convenience fees if I chose to make use of the online payment in those cases.