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i'm thinking about stopping balancing my checkbook

brianmanahan

brianmanahan

Lifer
i've manually balanced my checkbook for 15 years and guess what? the only mistakes that have ever been made are my own.

so i am thinking about just downloading the statements and calling it a day.

does anyone else do this?
 
I haven't "balanced" my checkbook in at least a decade. I generally know what is coming in and going out. A decent sized discrepancy would get noticed on my Sunday morning online banking in underpants ritual. Yeah that sounds creepy but you know what I mean.....
 
As long as you have enough money in the bank that you don't need to know if you can afford the next transaction, then you don't need balance your checkbook; instead what you need to do is an accuracy check on your checkbook. And luckily for the mathematically challenged, an accuracy check is quick and simple.

Just downloading statements is not enough. Downloading data that can be incorrect does nothing for you.

Case 1) The bank transposes two digits. I've had this happen to me. Suppose you wrote a check for $269.00 and the bank scanned it as $296.00. Your bank account will drop by the incorrect $296 amount, the person depositing the check will have their bank account credited for the incorrect $296 and the bank will have no way of detecting the error since both accounts balance as far as the bank is concerned. I've had this very this happen to me. The bank would do the math properly, so you don't need to do any math to balance your checkbook. But, the bank can only do math properly if the inputs are correct. And that double-check is left to you. While balancing your checkbook would catch this transposition, you don't need to go all that way. But you still need to check all lines to make sure that the numbers that are added/subtracted from your account are proper.

Case 2) Fees change over time. I've had so many people tell me over the years (probably close to a dozen) that it took them over a year to catch an ongoing fee and the bank would only credit them one month or maybe three months of the fees. Unless you check what you download for accuracy, you'll never know that they've snuck something in. Just having downloaded copies of bank balances with many $5 fees does you nothing. You only get justice if you realize that you shouldn't be getting that $5 fee and complain about it. While balancing your checkbook would catch this fee, you don't need to go all that way. But you still need to check all lines to make sure that there are no new fees slipped in there.
 
As usual, good points by dullard. It's never a good idea to ignore your finances. I had a new bank charge me the monthly maintenance fee the third month we had the account. We had easily exceeded the minimum balance to avoid the fee, and they had no explanation why we got charged. It was reversed but it caused me to drop that bank. If they had offered the slightest excuse for why it happened, I probably would have been OK. But when they couldn't come up with anything, my only conclusion was they start charging fees that shouldn't be charged, and see who complains.
 
monkeydelmagico said:
I haven't "balanced" my checkbook in at least a decade. I generally know what is coming in and going out. A decent sized discrepancy would get noticed on my Sunday morning online banking in underpants ritual. Yeah that sounds creepy but you know what I mean.....
Click to expand...

Pretty much this.
 
Need to check every month for sure, review all transactions, make sure all the amounts are correct. As dullard has said, when the bank screws up, you have to be awake to catch it!
 
As Dullard said - simply check to make sure the amounts match up. Often, this means checking against receipts, including restaurant tabs where you wrote in an amount of tip. Just think - if a restaurant raised every single customer's bill by $1 after the receipt was signed and they manually inputted the amount with tip after you left, what percent of people would catch it, and of those, who would go to the bother over $1?
 
I haven't mailed s check in decades. Every bill is taken out digitally.

I use YNAB to keep tabs on spending, etc... It's worth the price.
 
Not every check has to be written. I guess some people haven't heard of Bill Payer. Oh right, you young'ins trust corporate America to just take whatever they want out of your account.

Just when you stop checking the statements, that's when the bank will make a mistake. Also you want to check for fraud.
 
Use Mint, get emails whenever any large transactions happen.

I don't understand why people brag about being able to do simple addition/subtraction with checkbooks.
 
TheGardener said:
Not every check has to be written. I guess some people haven't heard of Bill Payer. Oh right, you young'ins trust corporate America to just take whatever they want out of your account.

Just when you stop checking the statements, that's when the bank will make a mistake. Also you want to check for fraud.
Click to expand...
Never heard of it.
A quick search, looks to me like a Credit Union system as all 1st page results are Credit Union related.


Yeah, anymore i just look to make sure all deposits & checks/withdrawls on my statement match with what i have.
 
DrPizza said:
As Dullard said - simply check to make sure the amounts match up. Often, this means checking against receipts, including restaurant tabs where you wrote in an amount of tip. Just think - if a restaurant raised every single customer's bill by $1 after the receipt was signed and they manually inputted the amount with tip after you left, what percent of people would catch it, and of those, who would go to the bother over $1?
Click to expand...

Yeah. I wonder about this. I checked for years and never found a discrepancy, and honestly lost interest and haven't checked in many more. They could easily pull an extra dollar or two out of me and I'd probably never notice, at least on larger bills. Cost of doing business I guess?

Either way, forget about balancing, I just scan through each bill for stuff that looks way off, e.g. charges that are way high or fraudulent.
 
I just check the transactions every few days to make sure nothing looks suspicious.
I ensure our checking minimum balance is a few thousand so we never have to worry about overdraft.
 
I haven't written a check in over 15 years and don't even know where my checkbook is or the next check #.

Regular online banking + credit cards (spending tracking/rewards/shopping benefits) = win
 
I've never properly balanced a checkbook. I always know how much money is coming/going. I might have had errors in cents, but I don't care about cents. I now use cash for everything, so there's nothing to balance.
 
I remember when I was a kid seeing my mom into all these papers everywhere looking like she was planing an Apollo mission or something, and asked what she was doing, and she said balancing the checkbook. I did not know what that meant, just figured complicated adult stuff. Now that I'm an adult, I can't say I've ever ever had to do it. It kind of helps when you have everything setup as preauthorized payments I guess. I still don't really know what it entails. All I do is login to my bank, usually on pay day, just to make sure that there's nothing out of the ordinary, and to see how much I got paid. My credit card bill is the only thing manual that I pay since it's variable, so I usually pay that off while I'm in there. For cheques (rare that I use those, but I sometimes do) I just kind of take a mental note that a certain amount will come out soon.
 
Since I switch to only using a CC, I don't bother balancing my checkbook. I have two bills coming from it at this point. I do comb my CC statements every month though.
 
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