Comments on: Do You Still Balance Your Checkbook? I Sure Don’t

By: Samantha

Samantha — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:45:35 +0000

Just a thought, but do you think there might be some relationship between people who don’t balance checkbooks and their debt? Not trying to be mean, but both activities show a lack of being on top of things, which is usually what gets people in trouble. My checkbook is balanced to the penny, and except for a mortgage which is much lower than what the banks told us we could afford, I have no debt.

By: Clair Schwan of Frugal Living Freedom

Clair Schwan of Frugal Living Freedom — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 02:38:14 +0000

I stopped balancing a checkbook more than 20 years ago. After years and years of finding no mistakes, it was clear that all the balancing problems were associated with my errors in writing in amounts or misinterpreting my scribble.

I simply scan the checks written, which today are only a handful, and do an at-a-glance calculation to see if it makes sense with respect to my beginning and ending balance. I only investigate more if there is a hint of trouble.

The same holds true for my credit card statement. Just recently I saw a $6.86 charge entered twice on the same day at the same location – a place that I shopped. I thought that I had been double charged. After finding my receipts, it turned out that I had purchased an item for $6.86 and then went right back into the store to get a different item that I had neglected to get. It was also $6.86 exactly.

I could be much more careful and rigorous with balancing my checking account and matching receipts with my credit card statement, but it just isn’t worth the time. I only write a few checks a month, and I can recall each charge that appears on my credit card statement. Only when I suspect a problem so I take the time to investigate.

My finances are “under my thumbnail,” so I don’t see that it’s necessary to use software or balance my accounts to the penny. I wouldn’t recommend this to others with a financially intensive lifestyle, but it works just fine for me and my simple lifestyle.

Clair

By: threadbndr

threadbndr — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:38:58 +0000

Whether you do it “old school” with a register or via a Quicken download, I think the only important thing is that you do it.

I personally use an excel spreadsheet to enter my receipts, autodrafts, and the few (very few) physical checks that I write.

I try to do this every few days because it’s easier if you just have a few.

But I do want to be sure that 1) everything has cleared, and cleared for the $ amount that I thought it was for and 2) nobody’s tried to slip an extra fraudulent charge in there.

There was a fraud case I read about recently where the perp had siphoned off fairly small amounts (around $75, I think) from people’s checking accounts several times – one person had been hit like 12 times. And didn’t even know it until their bank notified them! Their excuse was that they didn’t look at their check book balances.

Now most of us would notice one $1000 withdrawal, but maybe not several little ones……..

By: Carnival of Personal Finance No. 188: The Jane Austen Edition | Pecuniarities

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:02:11 +0000

[...] Your Money Relationship presents Do You Still Balance Your Checkbook? I Sure Don’t! [...]

By: Penelope @ Pecuniarities

Penelope @ Pecuniarities — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 02:59:19 +0000

I don’t balance my checkbook because I only write checks a few times a year for taxes. All my purchases go on credit cards so I can earn cash back or points, and I check my online banking and credit card statements once or twice a week just to make sure there are no unauthorized transactions.

By: Mrs. Micah

Mrs. Micah — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 20:06:53 +0000

I reconcile my accounts, but I don’t balance my checkbook. What I mean by reconciling is keeping an eye on my transactions and making sure I know where it all went. With Quicken, I really don’t feel like I need to do a paper version.

If I wrote more than 2 or 3 checks a month (sometimes just the one for rent) and used cash more than a couple times a month, I might do something like that. But since I don’t, it’s not much of an issue.

I know one couple who enter all their transactions manually, it’s kind of cool and works for them.

By: Mrs. Accountability

Mrs. Accountability — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:18:56 +0000

So I’ve been thinking about this as I read over the comments. Perhaps this is a problem with semantics. When you said “balance your checkbook” I took that to mean “reconcile your account” for that is literally what balancing a checkbook boils down to. Up until two years ago, I did keep a checkbook register, but it was difficult as I would record every debit card transaction whether from checking account #1, #2 or credit card transaction from account #1, #2, etc. Nowadays I use Quicken to retrieve the transactions from the various accounts, and I add in supporting information from the receipts I’ve saved, but I *still* reconcile the accounts each month. It’s a calming feeling to know my records match up to the banks. It’s not just to be able to look at and say “this is what I bought this month”. I also have overdraft accounts set up, in case I should accidentally overdraft, so it’s not so much that I’m worried about overdrafting (although my main account does charge a small fee for overdrafting). However, I am on a fairly tight budget, and I don’t have a cushion in my account. And in response to Andrew, you must be a single guy. No children? No wife? Finances get complicated pretty quickly when more than one person is involved with handling the money. I happen to know this from from very recent experience. Up until three years ago, I was the one making the money, buying the groceries and spending the money. Then I remarried my husband and now he’s taken over grocery shopping, and has his own business. It’s a lot more complicated, and I can also still remember how simple it was when I was a single gal in my early twenties. That was even simpler. I still have checkbook registers that show I spent $35 a week on groceries. Anyway, I think like Adam I also have fodder for an upcoming blog post. Thanks for the discussion.

By: My comment on a post about checkbook balancing | Geeky Weekly

My comment on a post about checkbook balancing | Geeky Weekly — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:21:24 +0000

[...] this comment on the Your Money Relationship site in response to this post and the Mrs. A comments, Do You Still Balance Your Checkbook? I Sure Don’t I’m one of the “young’uns” Mrs. A is referring to. I was balancing my checkbook right out of high [...]

By: arinehartdc

arinehartdc — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 22:42:45 +0000

I have never balanced my own checkbook…everything is online and I check my accounts relatively often as I do a lot of wheeling and dealing with rates and credit.

It’s sad that balancing a checkbook is kind of out of date, yet people still can’t do it, and it’s about the only thing high schools will teach anyone about finance.

By: Pete

Pete — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:24:18 +0000

I don’t balance a physical checkbook, but I do balance our accounts using Microsoft Money and online statements. I guess that’s the new generation way of balancing a checkbook. We also have a set budget that we follow every month so we follow our spending/etc pretty closely because of that.

My wife still religiously balances her checkbook just because she prefers to do it that way. I guess it’s all in what your comfort level is.

I think that anything you do to keep a track on things is a positive thing – whether its online statements or a physical checkbook.. so do it!