My bank does not offer online bill pay. I can look at my transactions that have already happened, but I can’t set up bill-paying from the bank’s end. I have to do that with each company—if they offer it.
As I wrote in the “separate finances” thread, our vet, the LP company, and my computer guy don’t take plastic, and cash would usually be a pain for those transactions. The bank wants a check with the stub from the payment book for our mortgage.
I repeat: Just because high-tech banking is available in some areas doesn’t mean it’s pervasive everywhere, or that everyone wants to use it and thinks it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. It’s like saying “I don’t understand why anyone wears green. I don’t like green.”
Me too, except I, like the OP, also pay for most things with my credit card (for the Amazon points) which gets paid off each month. Every single individual credit card charge gets recorded in my check register along with any other transaction, in or out.
I’ve read too many stories of people overdrafting their accounts because they rely only on their bank’s records of how much cash they have. If something doesn’t clear for a couple days or, in the case of the random check, a couple months, it won’t matter to me because the moment the money is ‘spent’ it is subtracted on my register. Granted, I do try to keep a minimum of $500 “float” in my account at all times, I still like knowing what I actually have to spend.
I also use the register each month to “balance” my credit card actions just in case I got double billed for something, or there is a fraudulent charge, or even if I forget to record a purchase (usually something online).
I’m also a little more anal than most about it. I know what my recurring charges are each month (car payment, cell phone, electric, etc.) and whether they hit at the 1st or the 15th of the month. So when I get paid I record the deposit and immediately subtract the recurring charges for that pay period so I have an accurate idea of how much discretionary money I have for each pay period.
I do use a register of sorts. At the end of the day, or several days I enter my spending into a spreadsheet so I know what I have in my account. It’s really messy though, I want to clean it up but I don’t know a lot about excel. At least I know what money I have to spend though. if I plan to go on a shopping spree I check before I leave so I know how much money I actually have to spend.
I do it like that because I have a cheque card, in addition to writing cheques (I write a few a month for things like rent or my son’s school things and occasionally people like the plumber). I save money with the cheque card as it doesn’t ‘count’ towards transactions which means less bank fees but sometimes it takes several days for it to clear my account. I could look at my bank balance easily enough but if I’ve used my cheque card quite a bit it could easily be out by enough to put me in overdraft and I try to avoid that. I also find it too easy to overspend if I use my credit card day to day, so I use it rarely or for big things which I pay off asap so I can get the airmiles.
Only if the payees take it. Or don’t have restrictions. PG&E, our explosive power company, only lets you pay on-line if you give up paper bills. I want paper bills as receipts, and as reminders. My on-line phone bill reminder didn’t show up for some reason (or I deleted it by mistake) and I was only reminded by the paper bill showing up.
I have Wells Fargo checking and a mortgage from Wells Fargo - but on-line mortgage payments don’t allow you to pay extra principal. So, we pay by check, which is stupid, but there you go.
I don’t think our handyman is set up for on-line bill pay, and even if he has a PayPal account, why make him eat the charges?
When it’s my turn to deal with our banking I log into Quicken about twice a week and update payments and deposits. I check for unfamiliar entries when the credit card statement comes but I don’t save every receipt. I do save most of them though, definitely anything with tax implications.
I pay every bill we have through online payments. We don’t deal with dog walkers or house cleaners right now so that’s not a concern, anything I can’t pay directly from the account I can pay by credit card and then pay that with an online payment.
The nice part about the system is that since everything is set up in Quicken as a reoccuring payment when a bill doesn’t arrive in the mail I still know it’s due and make a guess at what the payment should be (happened twice in the last year or so)
I’m tracking two joint checking accounts and a business checking account. Although I use Quicken, we also use the check registers. Rather than having 5 transactions a month we have over a hundred. Some checks, some debit card, some automatic payments; on top of that I have to track business invoices coming in and out.
A register serves as a manual ‘backup’ to check all the electronic stuff I track.
It’s all online. I don’t even balance my checkbook anymore. I check my account a couple of times a week, or a couple of times a day depending upon whether it’s the bill paying time of month (Just to make sure something didn’t sneak in, though I usually know where I’m at).
I have online bill pay as well. My bank even has a budget feature. It’s fabulous, I honestly can’t understand why anyone would go through the labor of paper check registers.
I don’t keep a checkbook register, as I have a good memory and am handy with arithmetic. Admittedly, having worked for a bank in a service capacity helped, but I always felt a bit hypocritical recommending to customers that they keep a checkbook register, since I really don’t think there’s any need for most single-owner account holders to do it.
The procedure:
[ul][li]Know how much money you’ve deposited.[/li][li]Know how much money you’ve spent.[/li][li]Check your balance occasionally via online banking, phone, or ATM.[/li][li]If it doesn’t add up, figure out whether you have any outstanding checks or recent transactions that might not have cleared.[/li][li]If you do, subtract those from your balance and see if it makes sense then.[/li][li]On the rare occasion that that’s not true, call the bank and figure out what the fuck. [/li][li]If it’s the bank’s fault, have them fix it.[/li][li]If it’s your fault, suck it up.[/li][li]If that last one happens frequently, stop shooting yourself in the foot and keep a checkbook register since you cannot successfully accomplish steps one and two.*[/li][/ul]
Granted, the above doesn’t apply to joint accounts, where you don’t always know how much has been spent and when. For this reason, as well as 1,927 others (I kept pretty good track) that I won’t mention in this thread to avoid derailing it, I will defend to the death that joint accounts are always, always, always, always a badidea. For the savvy single account holder, though, registers are more or less unnecessary.
*But if you can’t do that, you will probably screw up at keeping a register anyway, so I hope you like overdraft fees.
It was comical watching my 20-something daughter trying to pay H&R Block with a blank check her dad had given her. She had to ask them HOW to do it! She buys everything with her debit card. I saw a bank statement from when she worked at Walmart and bought her lunch there every day: “$2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50…”
I have a very small checking account. I just LIKE having a little money stashed away, so when I’m out shopping and don’t have enough cash I can just write a check. I write one or two checks a month. I round off the amounts and subtract them from the current balance. (It only takes 2 minutes, it takes that long to turn on the computer, or to call the bank for the automated information.) But I’m thinking of closing up that account because the free checking is no longer free, they’re going to take out $5 a month, and I find that annoying.
No credit cards. Two checking accounts with debit cards and one savings account. I keep all three electronically on my computer and reconcile all the statements. These get backed up to another hard drive in another room, and also to an offsite service, every single time.
Can’t imagine not keeping my own record. For one thing, having been the victim of an identity theft, I know the nightmare would have been way way worse without accurate records.
That’s cool. Next time someone asks you could try Ann Lander’s advice. Fix them with an icy stare and say “Why would you ask such a personal question?”.
I can think of some good reasons why joint accounts are not always a good idea. For example, when Airman is deployed, it can take 24 to 48 hours for transactions to clear and he has no way to tell me he spent money. So I think we have x when we really have x-y. Or if his paycheck gets screwed up, I’ve still got money to live on. We’ve had two accounts for about three years now, and it’s worked out fairly well for the most part.
Maybe he means a joint account exclusively. As in, there’s only one account and it’s a joint one.
For the last two marriages, I’ve operated well with some combination of his, hers, and ours. Currently we have two joint accounts, but one is assigned to me and the other to hubby. In case of emergency we can write checks out of the other one’s account. That probably only happens two or three times a year.
Having a good memory is fine until you no longer have a good memory. And I don’t see how being handy with arithmetic has anything to do with anything. Knowing how to add helps keep your register correct, but besides that ???
In balancing our checkbook I’ve noted intervals from a day or two to three weeks from check writing to check clearing. Your method seems overly error prone for any reasonable number of checks per month. A register lets you know how much you actually have, not how much the bank thinks you have.
There are certainly cases where separate accounts make sense, but we’ve had a joint account for 33 years with zero problems and zero overdrafts, so “always” seems a bit strong.
A “reasonable number of checks per month” varies widely from person to person. I write 2-3 checks per month: the mortgage, the gas bill, and sometimes the lawn man. It’s pretty clear at a glance if the mortgage has been paid, and I keep an extra $1000 or so in checking above our self-imposed spending levels just in case there is any weirdness. Any unusual and large purchases–including checks-- involve transferring money over from savings, and I transfer that over as soon as I write the check. If I look at my account and see “wow, that seems high”, I will then think “Oh, the $2K check to the plumber must not have cleared.” That doesn’t happen so often that I can’t remember it when it does.
There are a lot of life styles out there, and different systems work with different lifestyles.
if I plan to go on a shopping spree I check before I leave so I know how much money I actually have to spend.