Do you balance your checkbook?
May 19, 2009 by Jennifer Chait
Filed under financial matters
I thought we’d have a little informal poll today. Here’s the situation, I’ m really anal about balancing my checkbook. I have to know, at all times, what’s in my checking account. To the penny. I never even pay bills automatically because I hate when companies take my money and I didn’t write it down on that exact day. I’d rather take the time to get online and pay myself.
However, it’s looking more and more like I’m the rare one because everyone I meet says, “I never balance my checkbook.” My son’s dad was that type. He never wrote stuff down, he’d just call his bank every once in a while to see if he had enough money in there for bills or say, when he wanted to write a check. Needless to say, we did not share a checking account because I would have gone insane.
Two of my best friends are also that way. They never balance their checkbooks. One of these friends told me that he worries less because he doesn’t balance his checkbook daily. He says, “I know I have money in there and if I messed with it, maybe I’d start to worry about cash.” On the other hand, my other best friend just got an overdraft fee because she never balances.
Here’s my take – is everyone nuts!? I’m not seeing how this new not balancing your checking account deal is sweeping the nation. In my opinion, this can lead to more not less worry and cause things like the previously mentioned overdraft fee. Maybe if you’re rolling in cash, checking the account becomes a moot point. I however am not rolling in cash and neither are most of my friends, yet, they’re not balancing their checkbooks.
To me this is sloppy banking, but it seems like I’m the only one who thinks so. SO tell me – how do you deal with your checking account balance? Do you balance each day; when you buy something; never? Let me know how you deal and what the pros of your system are.
[image via stock.xchng]
I do not balance my check book.. I do get daily emails and text messages from my bank daily. (Chase is the best at that). My time is worth money, and why spend my time doing what the bank does for me. Daily I see what has gone through the bank and what my balance is. It has really helped me be on top of my spending.
When we had two incomes and 7K/month coming in, I did not keep my checkbook balanced. This led to a lot of overspending and mindless spending since I knew I could always pay the bill in full each month. We pay for almost everything with a credit card anyway, so I never bounced checks. We’ve been a one income family for three years now and I still wasn’t balancing the checkbook. I had to dip into savings to pay our credit card off each month and started using my debit card more. I got three overdraft fees in one month. It was the first time I’d ever “bounced a check” and I’m nearly 40 years old. For the past few months I’ve been balancing the checkbook to the penny and watching every single expenditure like a hawk. We still pay by credit card for everything but now I pay the credit card twice a week online and record it faithfully in the checkbook. This system is working for me and we’ve drastically reduced our spending and upped our savings to about 25% of our take home pay. I’m with Jennifer on the balancing the checkbook issue. One way or another, I think not balancing leads to less control over finances and, at least for me, way more unnecessary expenditures.
Wow, I guess if I had 7K coming in I might get slack too. Especially since I hate shopping. Although, maybe I’d still balance because I’d be moving some of that into other accounts – savings, stocks, etc. It’s good you never bounced a check until 40 – that puts you ahead of most I’d wager although I’m glad you have a system now.
When did you join the Bliss line-up?
Um, I don’t technically balance the checkbook – Quicken does it for me. They send me a daily report. I also glance at the online statement every other day or so because I don’t 100% trust Quicken (although it has never given me a reason not to).
That’s funny. I used Quicken for a while but also had trust issues. I guess I think my human brain is better. Hmmm.
I balance my checkbook every day. Sometimes more than once a day. I also have a spreadsheet that I input all the info from bills that have been paid to those that haven’t yet. I do 6 months at a time and that way I can see where our spending is at. I get daily emails from my bank too with my balance and online statement. It’s really nice to know exactly where I’m at!
I too have friends that don’t balance there checkbooks and I wonder how they know if they can afford some things.
You might be my money soul mate
You sound like me to a tea. I also write down everything I buy. I’m so nuts. Man.
I don’t balance my checkbook anymore and haven’t for a couple of years. We do the online bill pay and use envelopes. Checking the online balance whenever I feel like it is all I do. Rarely do we ever right a check, the school every so often and our tithe once a month is all that we use it for.
Having a plan and telling my money where to go as made a real difference.
I’ve heard of some people who use the envelope system over the check balance. That’s cool if it works for you. Maybe the point is to have SOME system, so long as it keeps you ahead of things.
At a minimum everyone should review their bank statement very soon after receiving it and look at each and every transaction. It is the responsibility of the bank customer to make a timely review of their statement for errors and if an error is not discovered in a timely fashion, the bank is not responsible for removing the charge. Generally they will only help you during one statement cycle. If you find an error several months down the road it is likely too late to do anything about it. I recently had a client that discovered that multiple debits for $24.99 had been taken out of his account over a four month period with a total loss of around $400.00. The bank would only assist him with the most recent fraudulent charges because the rest were too distant in time. He ended up losing about $300.00. Had he been reviewing his statement monthly he would have caught the charges sooner. If you read the entire terms and conditions on your account you will find that the bank has all of the power and very little of the responsibility, it is up to the account holder to protect themselves. I balance my check book about once a week and I write down every transaction and compare to my bank statement within several days of receiving the statement. I have found errors, especially erroneous bank fees.
Good point. Banks can make mistakes, or charge you for weird stuff. Just one more reason to balance that ol’ checkbook.
I do balance my check book. I don’t do it as often as I should but I try to log in online at least once a week. My husband, does not. He pays things online and then if he ever has to write a check, he has to ask me where his check book is. Like Jennifer, my husband and I have separate accounts and that works for us (for the same reasons).
I balance my checkbook at least once a week. We have gone to a cash budget system (envelope system) and all my utility bills come out automatically from my acct. The only thing we pay by check is our monthly tithe and our mortgage payment, and I pay our cell phone bill via online bill pay with my bank.
I think people can get in trouble really fast when they don’t balance their checkbooks at all. I actually wasn’t balancing it for a while when we first got married b/c I kept running out of the register things and forgetting to get more from the bank. Then I found a template online that is an excel sheet checkbook register. Now I just set up one register for every month and keep my records for 12 months. Works wonderfully for us!
I hate when my register book runs out of space – the online template is a great tip!
I don’t balance my checkbook and frankly never have since graduating from college. This hasn’t led to financial ruin because I follow a budget. I do, however, review my bank account online every few days to make sure that there haven’t been any odd charges.
That being said, I’m pretty good at numbers and can generally tell you at any given time how much I have in my bank account within $25.00. As I say, the no balancing checkbook method is primarily based on a budget that you adhere to strictly.
I check my account daily to compare it with the checks/debits that I have made for the previous day. I know, it’s not the same as balancing the checkbook, but it works for us. I’m able to keep tabs on my acct without much effort this way.
I never balance my checkbook. I don’t even have a “checkbook”.. like the old school balance book with checks. Lol. The only time I use a check is to make my car payment because they don’t do it online.
The only time I ever check the balance of my bank account is on paydays when I deposit my check every 2 weeks. I am fairly frugal and I usually have more coming in than I spend so I know I’ll always have enough money to cover my bills. I don’t find a need to look at it everyday. The only problem with that is if someone got access to my account and stole from it I probably wouldn’t know until that following payday.. but I like to think that won’t happen to me (as everyone does). I’ve been using this method for about 6 years now.
I have to have my checkbook balanced or I will go crazy!! I think part of the reason is because I worked at a bank for over 4 years. It seemed like most of the people who would overdraw their account had no clue what the balance should be. We always made a point of letting customers know when they opened a new account that they were responsible for balancing it. We would usually refund one overdraft fee/year after that we figured they should know better. It’s also a good point to check your balance because with more things going paperless and automatically coming out sometimes a business might take a fee out twice. If you don’t realize this until months down the road your bank is going to be less sympathetic because you should have caught that sooner if you kept records!
My husband & I have a joint checking but also have our own separate accounts. We call this our “play money” – we usually use our private accounts for frivolous things like movies, CDs or massages. These accounts have saved us from many arguments when it comes to buying stuff like that
I worked with a really smart chick who once told me- “I haven’t balanced my checkbook in 6 months…” I about died. I thought she had lost her mind but didn’t say anything.
Personally I use my register and balance my checkbook with my online statement several times a week.
I balance my checkbook weekly. I did not do that in college, and I overdrafted my account. Balancing weekly keeps me on top of my spending-I actually save money by challenging myself to see how long I can keep the balance at a certain level.
I haven’t balanced my checkbook for 15 years. I know this sounds crazy but I check online almost every day and when you have to be frugal, you simply don’t spend what you know you don’t have. I know I have a certain amount every month for frivolous spending like movies and babysitting. I simply don’t spend above what we normally budget for. DH is in charge of the finances so that makes it easy for me not to have to balance the checkbook. I just have to document my deposits.
The only time we get into trouble is when we have an unexpected expense. But that’s why we have overdraft protection from our bank. It’s a heck of a lot cheaper than paying each time a check is overdrawn.
I enter expenditures into my checkbook the same day they are made and keep the running balance up to date. I compare my register to my online bank account at least weekly to make sure I haven’t missed anything, and I balance my checkbook at least monthly, usually more often. I always have to have it balance to the penny.