Do You Balance Your Checkbook?

[disneysteve]

I'm amazed, especially here on the budget board, that so few people feel the need to balance their checkbooks. I've found several bank errors and numerous personal errors over the years that I never would have discovered if I hadn't cross-checked everything against the statement each month.

 

[Steven41782]

I didn't until I got married. Now I have to because I can't keep up with two people's spending in my head. What has helped though is that we now have a Disney Visa. So now I don't have to worry about as many debits to the bank statement. That helps so much!

~Steven

 

[bkaz]

Ok...this post has given me the chance to confess my ignorance! I even asked the bank about this last week. We do almost all our banking online, many auto payments...then we use debit cards for groceries and cash, and credit cards for everything else...which are paid off at the end of each month. Since I began online banking I have given up keeping track of things in quicken, because what's the point? If you download transactions from your bank account into quicken, now you have the same info that they are going to send you already in quicken...so what's to reconcile?

For those of you that keep things in quicken, do you go in every day and write down every auto pay from your bank and every check written and every debit purchase? My New Year's resolution was to start doing this...but I don't know where to begin. Our bank was purchased in August and we started "fresh". Would you start in quicken with that balance and fill in the six months that I have missed? HELP!!!

 

[T. Lynn]

I don't use the download feature. Tried it once and I didn't like how it transfered things into Quicken. I go in on a daily basis (or weekly if too many things are going on) and input checks written out and debits made. Also make sure they are catagorized to the right places. Again, I have 3 self-employment jobs so it's easier doing it as we go. Tax time is great because I just print out a report for each job and I'm ready to go.

Last year I was so busy getting my new career going that I didn't have time to use Quicken. Well, this month I paid for it. It took three 12 hour days to input 7 months of deposits/debits into 3 accounts and our personal as well. Two nights I stayed up until 5 in the morning to get it all done. I will NEVER let that happen again. Everything is caught up to date and no matter what, I will at least enter things on a weekly basis.

 

[rucrazy]

To not balance your checkbook is pure laziness. Pure and simple. I'm not lazy.

 

[dcfromva]

Ok...this post has given me the chance to confess my ignorance! I even asked the bank about this last week. We do almost all our banking online, many auto payments...then we use debit cards for groceries and cash, and credit cards for everything else...which are paid off at the end of each month. Since I began online banking I have given up keeping track of things in quicken, because what's the point? If you download transactions from your bank account into quicken, now you have the same info that they are going to send you already in quicken...so what's to reconcile?

I am confused as to how folks can get along without reconciling the account each month. What about transactions that are going to occur in the future--be they debit or check? How do you know how much money to keep in the account to cover these things? How about a debit transaction for a mail order item that was on backorder for several weeks (where they don't charge it to your account until it actually ships)? Or a pre-order in which you put a deposit on it to hold it, but the balance is charged to your account when the item ships?

-DC

 

[sk!mom]

To not balance your checkbook is pure laziness. Pure and simple. I'm not lazy.

I don't know if it is laziness but definitely unwise (IMO).

DH actually handles this job in our house but he has found many errors over the years. Mistakes that we or the bank have made. These errors would not be discovered if the account wasn't reconciled monthly.

It has become an easier job over the years with so much electronic banking and our use of a reward card for almost everything. Our bank statement has very few transactions. Checkling over the credit card statment is a pretty big job though.

 

[Good Ol Gal]

I balance our accounts with Quicken every single day.

I love checking them and reconciling them.

 

[ScottOKW2K]

I balance the checkbook once a month, in ink.

To the penny.

Old habit by now, and usually doesn't take more than a few minutes.

 

[phillybeth]

I'm really surprised that people don't actually balance their checkbook. I mean a real balance with every transaction accounted for, knowing what your outstanding checks are, all of your deposits and tallying it up with a calculator so you know your real balance.

I do that in my head. I'm surprised that more people don't know exactly what is in their account at any given moment WITHOUT balancing!

I know what is in there, what transactions are pending, and what I can spend- all as a mental tally. I check online daily. I also have a 'cushion'- a particular balance I will not go below except in true emergencies.

So I guess, really, when you get down to it, I balance very day. Just not with paper and pen.

 

[MommaPooh]

Dh does the Quicken thing once a week. At the same time I reconcile with the bank on daily basis. DH is a CPA and he is not nearly as anal as I am about knowing the balance. I would go nuts if I did not know what the balance was.

 

[snels]

I always know what my balance is. When I write a check I subtract the check from the total. People should always do this!

I voted wrong in your poll. I thought you meant the official bank statement that comes once a month, so I voted monthly.

 

[alicenwonder99]

Wow, I feel so old fashioned. I balance my checkbook monthly with the statement in the mail. (ya know using the cute little worksheet on the back page) I work at my bank so I have a good idea of where my account stands daily anyway. I see the problems caused by people not balancing and not writing down purchases, checks and "thinking" you have money in the bank..there is no way I could afford not to balance my book.

Holy Smokes! Am I that old-fashioned, too??? I write EVERYTHING down on my checkbook register: checks I've written out (don't have too many of those, maybe just a few a month to the kids' schools), debit card purchases, online transactions, online bills, etc. Then, once a month, when my bank statement comes in the mail, I balance it, line by line. Yes, I do check everything off and I balance it to the penny.

I am so amazed that people don't do this any longer. Hmmmm...I'm "only" 43 years old, I guess it's a thing of the past!

 

[disneysteve]

I think some people are using the term "balance the checkbook" in a different way than I do. It does not mean knowing your current balance. It means comparing the record of transactions you've made against the banks record of transactions and being sure they are in agreement. If they don't agree, it means reviewing everything until you find the discrepancy and correct it. It could be a math error. It could be a bank error. It could be that you forgot to record a transaction you made.

For example, one of my employees went to the doctor recently and paid her copay of $30 by check. When she reviewed her statement, she discovered that the check had actually gotten processed for $32.00 because they misread her writing. If she didn't review the statement and crosscheck it against her own records, she wouldn't have discovered that error.

Just because you think you know your current balance doesn't mean you are correct as far as the bank is concerned. You could be off $2, as in my example, or you could be off a lot more if a mistake was made.

 

[kaddjr]

Before DH and I got married, he never balanced his checkbook. He had overdraft protection so he felt he was safe. Then I found out he owed the bank about $700 for that protection. We took care of that right away and I made him close the account. Since then, I'm the one who takes care of all that. He really prefers it this way. Once a month we sit down and go over everything, just so he knows where we are financially. When the gals at the bank ask him if he wants to know our balance, he says, "No, my boss (me) takes care of that!"

I do balance my checkbook. If I'm off even by .01¢, it makes me crazy! I use Money for my register but I don't have it linked to the bank account via the net. I do a weekly balance, then when the statement comes, I use that to double check everything, just to be sure it's all correct. I cannot imagine NOT balancing my checkbook.

 

[Golf4food]

Checkbook? What's a checkbook?

I only have to write regular checks for rent, church (tithes, etc), and medical bills. On average a total of 3-5 per month at most. Everything else is CC, DC, or online.

I keep track of everything in Excel multiple times a week - preferably every time we spend money - so I pretty much always know how much we have in any given account at any given time. I don't really even record checks in the checkbook registry because I only write them while at home (99% of the time anyway) and can put the entry into the spreadsheet right away. No need to go back and balance things at the end of the month.

 

[nordkin]

I check mine on line as well as the old fashion way when the paper statement comes in. I have found errors in amounts charged by the bank. The largest error I have found is when I use my check card/debit card in a restaurant. I have found incidences three times in three different restaurants where the wait person has changed the amount of the tip. I usually leave cash for the tip and have found where the wait person has added a tip to the charge slip. I have immediately contacted the establishment, showed them my original charge slip, and they issued a credit. I would not have found this is I did not reconcile my check register to what the bank had.

 

[dcfromva]

I do that in my head. I'm surprised that more people don't know exactly what is in their account at any given moment WITHOUT balancing!

I know what is in there, what transactions are pending, and what I can spend- all as a mental tally. I check online daily. I also have a 'cushion'- a particular balance I will not go below except in true emergencies.

So I guess, really, when you get down to it, I balance very day. Just not with paper and pen.

You must have an excellant memory! I don't even remember what I had for dinner the day before, my account would be so messed up if I relied on my memory.
Are you the only one making transactions on your account? We set up a policy in our household--I'm the only one who makes ATM/Debit withdrawls and nobody gets hurt (I do write them all down so there are no surprises)! DH gets the checkbook.
DH occasionally needs to write a check for something and it might slip his mind to tell me about it. It is no big deal because we have duplicate checks and I can get the needed info from the checkbook.
-DC

 

[cinmell]

Yes I do. I write every withdrawal and deposit as soon as I make them. If I go to the ATM, I immediately write it in the check register and same goes for any checks I write, purchases I make and anything done online.

 

[phillybeth]

I think some people are using the term "balance the checkbook" in a different way than I do. It does not mean knowing your current balance. It means comparing the record of transactions you've made against the banks record of transactions and being sure they are in agreement. If they don't agree, it means reviewing everything until you find the discrepancy and correct it. It could be a math error. It could be a bank error. It could be that you forgot to record a transaction you made.

Again, I do that every day online. I see all transactions, cancelled checks, debits, etc. I know the transactions I've made and what the amounts are. I know the checks I've written, the amounts, and I can see if they are pending or if they have been cashed. I know the automatic payments I have scheduled and the dates the money is transferred.

I don't keep a register- why should I? Why do I need to record transactions that are immediately visible to me by checking a website? I can see a discrepancy much faster online than waiting for a paper statement that only comes once a month. And I can see any fraudlent usage as well (not that there has been any).

And yes, this is my account only. I pay all the bills, I'm the only one who has access to the checking account. I learned that lesson the hard way. He has his own accounts for his personal expenses.