No. In Germany cash is still widely accepted. The Dutch find this very peculiar.
Yeah, this has been my experience as well. Small businesses — especially non-chain restaurants — will not infrequently refuse to accept plastic. It’s a German cultural quirk. I haven’t observed it to the same degree in Austria or Switzerland, either, interestingly.
I think perhaps one reason why banking in the US seems so backward and weird compared to Europe is that until 1997, banks were not allowed to operate branches across state lines.
I’m really, really surprised at the number of people who say they don’t keep a running balance of their checking account funds in real time. Doing anything but that seems to be asking for trouble.
We keep a running tally of all our expenses in real time, subtracted from our checking account balance. We “balance” it in the traditional sense with our bank statements every payday. So, twice a month. (That is, we make sure all entries match and all amounts are correct down to the penny. If they don’t match then we hunt for the discrepancy.)
We still write paper checks on a monthly basis as there are a couple of our utility providers who have yet to join the 21st century and will only accept paper checks (or cash in person). I don’t find this annoying or inconvenient; the worst part of this process for me is making sure I always have stamps and envelopes available and remembering to swing by the post office once a month on my way to work. That’s inconvenient.
It’s still important as money still can move slowly. Some debit card payments can take days to post to our bank and thus it’s vital that we know in real time what our balance is as well as what is should be – or rather, will be after everything clears.
There’s also the issue of two people using the same account. That makes it easy for one person to buy something but the other person not be aware of it because even with debit card payments float is a real thing. For a couple whose finances are tight, this could unwittingly lead to overdrafts.
Additionally, some things like tips applied to a payment made on a debit card in a restaurant are a separate charge with our bank and will usually post some days after the payment for the meal. So if we go out to dinner and pay $80 for the meal and add $16 for the tip, the $80 will show up almost immediately as a debit from our account but the $16 tip will come through a few days later. Knowing this and calculating this in a ledger in real time saves unneeded hassle.
There can also be mistakes on the bank’s part. We once had a overdraft fee show up randomly on our bank statement. We had not overdrawn our account, indeed hadn’t even come close, but there it was buried in with all the other debits listed on the statement. I had to call them, ask what it was for, confirm it was literally a random computer glitch on their part, have it corrected, and make sure it was registered on the statement. Had I not been going through and matching it to my own ledger I likely would’ve missed it within all the noise.
We do all of the above and find it no more labor intensive than noting payments made with a paper check were twenty years ago. Debit cards, automatic withdrawals, electronic fund transfers, ATM withdrawals, and the like all have their own specific code for the ledger book, but it’s trivially easy to keep track – everything has a receipt, either paper or an email. Even the automatic monthly payment debits.
Do you mean paper statements sent by the bank to your mailbox each month have gone the way of the dodo? Yes, agreed. As far as paper statements being important go, I argue they’re still very important. My bank told my they are only required to keep online statements going back 25 months, anything older that that they have to dig up from somewhere and that will take time and extra processing fees. Since the IRS can audit up to seven years prior my bank encourages everyone to keep paper copies of all monthly bank statements going back at least that long.
As I type all this out much of it seems archaic, but the peace of mind is worth it and, really, there isn’t an effective alternative. Float still exists, errors still happen, mistakes can be made, and waiting a month to notice such things doesn’t seem wise. Using a Excel sheet or Quicken instead of a paper ledger has the same practical effect.
I see every transaction on line and can tell if they’re legit or not. (sometimes I have to ask my wife about something I don’t recognize) I assume they get the math right. I know there are checks outstanding. If it’s a big check, I’ll factor that in. If it’s a small one, it doesn’t matter until it clears.
If I was still living closer to the edge like I did in the old days, I’d still track every transaction with a ledger of some sort. Quicken is what I used in the 90s.
I keep a running check on all of my deposits and expenditures, and I never do “auto pay”. I had a friend tell me, “It makes it so easy. You never even have to think about it.” Ironically, that’s exactly why I don’t do it. If you don’t keep track of your finances, someone else will.
I still use Quicken and have been doing so since the earl 1990s.
Whether or not that’s really asking for trouble depends on your circumstances. Neither my husband nor I are in the habit of writing large checks or making large debit purchases on a whim. The closest we might come to “trouble” is if some bill payment gets deducted a couple of days before a paycheck is deposited - which means we’ll go into overdraft for a couple of days. Since it happens maybe once a year , I’m not willing to spend all that time to avoid paying a $10 fee. We still look at the transactions every couple of days and would notice the overdraft fee, or if a check was processed for an incorrect amount or if there was a debit that we didn’t recognize- but balancing to the penny? Nope. I would say my husband could go back to that if he wanted to , but I don’t miss him spending hours looking for 57 cents only to finally realize it was his mistake, not the bank’s.
Interest rates haven’t been high enough for me to worry about keeping $15,000 in my checking account for at least 15 years. That is more than any check I have written in that time, except for actually putting 5% down as earnest money on a home purchase ($35k).
I don’t think my checking account balance has been below $10,000 for many years, and I only bother to move money into a money market or other mutual fund when the balance goes over $50k.
I see every debit and credit flash across my phone, including the few cents in interest. If something hit my account I wasn’t expecting, I’d notice. I will see $1700 going to American Express or $2500 going to another credit card, and I will have some idea whether that makes sense or not. My wife sees all the charges hitting the credit cards in near real time on her phone. I see my paycheck direct deposit every Thursday. If it changes from $x285to $x375, I will know I’ve hit the 401k deferral or the FICA limits. Then it will be the same number for many weeks.
All the time. To the penny. When I ask the bank what my balance is, I already know what the the correct amount ( less any outstanding checks/charges) should be. I’m just checking to see if they got it right. Years ago they gave me a couple of five dollar refunds to which I was not entitled. I tried to give them back but their systems are not set up for such a transaction. Maybe I’m the only person that ever tried to do something like that. So now every time I check my balance, I have to think to myself, “Oh, and that ten dollars.”
I have been balancing my bank accounts every month for 50 years. I have kept track of my finances on paper, spreadsheets, Quicken, QuickBooks (for my business), and AceMoney, since I moved out on my own in the summer of 1973.
In the beginning (pre-computer era), keeping your own records on paper was the only option. Most people just used their checkbooks, and reconciled them lagainst their bank statements. (The paper statements actually included worksheets [PDF!] to help you balance them.) My father showed me his method, which involved setting aside the amounts you had to pay for regular monthly payments (rent, utilities, insurance, etc.) in separate ledger columns and deducting them from the bank balance so you’d know how much you had left for fripperies like food, movies, books, etc.
Once I had a computer, I maintained the same style of ledger on a spreadsheet, but no longer had to do the math by hand.
When I started my own business in 1997, I used Quick Books, on the advice of my accountant, and so moved my personal accounts to Quicken, since the UIs were quite similar. A decade or so ago, when Quicken went to a subscription model, I switched to AceMoney, which you only have to pay for once.
With the paper and spreadsheet methods, you had to manually enter every transaction, but the accounting apps import all of your transactions straight from your bank. With rare exceptions, “balancing the account” entails clicking a box that checks off all of the transactions you just downloaded, then making sure that your beginning and ending balances for the month match those on the statement. (They almost always do.) I also assign all expenditures to one of several categories (utilities, groceries, dining out, entertainment, etc.) so I can track how we spend our money.
At the same time that I balance all our bank and credit card accounts, I also set up all bill payments in the bank’s bill pay center and arrange any transfers between accounts that may be needed. The whole process takes maybe an hour a month.
The main advantage is that I can look in one program and see our compete financial situation at a glance, including our total net worth and all bank, credit, investment, and retirement accounts. I can run reports to see how we’ve spent our money over any given period. This has been very useful several times in the last few years as we have changed jobs and moved. We were able estimate, with pretty good accuracy, what level of salary we’d need, how much we could spend on a house, and how those changes would affect our lifestyle. We can also plan for our retirement with more confidence.
I know there are online apps and services that claim to give you the same kind of overview, and I tried at least one, but it wasn’t as simple or compete as I had expected. And I’m and old fart, stuck in my ways, and I just prefer keeping my own records on my own computer and not trusting all of my financial records to the cloud.
I don’t use it because I like the flexibility of paying one bill sooner or later, or for a smaller amount, or some other reason. I liked being able to control it.
I haven’t balanced my check book in probably 30 years – and the most I ever did then was just the back of the statement worksheet they had. I never used any other ancillary system. Now, I check almost daily for any anomalies, and I have alerts for any amount over $100. They’re always for something I knew about already. I keep enough of a balance that I haven’t had an overdraft for decades. With that record why hassle all the paper/computer work to do all the balancing?
I did have an issue this week, but it was my own fault. I completely let property taxes slip my mind. I had to make my payment and sweat it out until it posted yesterday (it’s about $1800 so it’s not a super small amount). I only sweated about it because any returned payments to the Treasurer/Tax Collector trigger a pricy penalty.
I can’t remember the last time I wrote a paper check. I know that last time I did, I was really shocked that whoever it was wouldn’t except either a debit or credit card.
Do people have a lot of people requiring paper checks???
I wouldn’t say a lot- in fact, most of the checks I write are gifts, because I haven’t figured out how to put a Venmo transfer in a nice card. 
But there are a few- the neighbor I rent my garage from wants either cash or check, a resort I where I spend a family weekend takes credit/debit cards when you are physically present to pay the balance, but doesn’t accept deposits by credit card over the phone or by mail, my husband’s bowling leagues are cash or check. There used to be more - pre-college, my kids’ school tuition had to be paid by check and registration for sports leagues were check or maybe cash.
I am surprised to see many of the above posters pay bills using a debit card. In the UK at least, credit cards have much better protection against fraud and better ways of getting refunds from reluctant suppliers with faulty products.
I use credit cards for nearly all transactions other than direct debits. Of course, they are paid off in full as they fall due. As with most Europeans, cheques are history. Pensions and dividends are all paid directly into my current account.
I check my bank accounts several times a week and CCs a couple of times a month. The bank pays a modest interest on deposits up to £5000 so I try to keep the balance around that. Any excess gets siphoned off into investments.
Here in Canada, some businesses only accept debit cards, not credit cards due to the fees they have to pay to visa, mastercard, etc, so my wife and I have and use both, but admittedly only use debit where we can’t use credit.
I had to mark ‘never’ because my wife does it. I’ve never been able to do it properly for some reason, so I’m forbidden to touch it. I always worked on the principle that rounding amounts were fine; apparently they’re not fine for someone with an MBA in finance. She also does the taxes. But I set up the credit card payment every month because one of our stupid credit unions can’t figure out how to make it automatically just pay it off out of checking.
Nope. I just have a quick look-see to see if anything is out-of-line or looks wrong. I know how to do it – I’ve balanced a million dollar account (that was off by tens of thousands of dollars) to the penny back in my temping days – but can’t be arsed to do it in my personal life. Does it look close enough? Good enough for me, I have better things to waste my time on. I’m never in danger of a check bouncing (back when I wrote checks) and even if someone didn’t cash a check for months, it didn’t matter to me – there’s always enough to cover.
I have a budget program that I use to track where all my money is, what it’s spent on, and what I plan to spend it on. Part of using it is to enter my receipts into it - I do that regularly, itemizing my receipts by spending category. This helps me keep an eye on things, and it’s kind of fun to know exactly where my money is going and in what quantities. (For example, last year I spent $474.31 on gasoline - and bought no gas at all in January, February, or November.)
Of course, in addition to tracking my expenditures in fine detail, YNAB also provides a spot for me to track when things have cleared, so I check every few days and update that. For some reason I get a certain thrill when literally everything has cleared at once - elimination of loose ends, I suppose. It’s certainly not worry about a forgotten payment coming through - I have tons of slack. It’s just nice knowing that all the money in my accounts is actually mine. Plus it helps me to precisely pay off my credit card every month, which is cool. No interest charges for me!
By comparison I spent $2249 in fuel for two cars last year.
Small car, short commute. 
I pay my rent via a paper check - a few years back they finally set up an option to let us pay online - with an extra fee of several dollars to pay for the privilege. Ha ha ha no.