i'm thinking about stopping balancing my checkbook

[Carson Dyle]

What's the point? Unless you're my aunt Lydia who would put $60 at a time in her checking account and then go shopping and have to put the rump roast back when she got to the checkout and realized she was $4 short.

I haven't balanced a check book in 25 years.

 

[Imp]

I have like 30 checks I haven't used in years left... Only times I ever used them were for opening accounts or at new jobs.

 

[boomerang]

I take care of the money in the household but my wife still writes checks and once every few months I find I must also to pay something that I can't do with a CC or electronically. Or, I want a "paper trail" for whatever reason. I don't get the checks back anymore obviously, but they are scanned and available through my bank.

So with the two of us utilizing the account, it's important to have the correct balance in the check register so I maintain that and as to balancing, it takes about two minutes to do it. No big deal. I sometimes find that I have transposed numbers in the cents column. I think I'm becoming dyslexic as I'm aging.

 

[Billb2]

Another "What's a checkbook?"

 

[Puffnstuff]

I always reconcile my checkbook and usually compare my daily book balance with the posted bank balance sent to me every morning.

 

[IronWing]

I have like 30 checks I haven't used in years left... Only times I ever used them were for opening accounts or at new jobs.

My bank has been sold and the name changed since I last ordered checks. I wonder if the checks are still good? The routing number is still the same.

 

[lxskllr]

My bank has been sold and the name changed since I last ordered checks. I wonder if the checks are still good? The routing number is still the same.

Banks used to be of granite, with the name carved in stone on the facade. Built to last forever. Now banks use a tyvek banner bungee corded across the fast food restaurant sign it took over. Inspires confidence...

 

[rh71]

We just aim to leave a 500 buffer in our joint account every month

 

[rh71]

My bank has been sold and the name changed since I last ordered checks. I wonder if the checks are still good? The routing number is still the same.

Was good for me when Washington Mutual was taken over by Chase decades ago. Same routing means you're fine.

 

[DrPizza]

Heh - we were just talking about our consumer math class yesterday. One of the big topics is learning to balance a checkbook.

 

[bradly1101]

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 just use an easy-peasy spreadsheet in Google Sheets, so I can see my balance from anywhere.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

^This

and: Like.. you were still writing in the register?

 

[John Connor]

I don't balance checkbooks. Checkbooks balance me.

 

[Fenixgoon]

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.....

this.

 

[brianmanahan]

^This

and: Like.. you were still writing in the register?

yeah i have every transaction written down in a register from 2001 to today, and i still have every register saved in a folder

 

[HeXen]

I have never, ever used a checkbook period. I've always managed money in my head and has served me very well. Plus I always keep a buffer of at least $1000. If I don't have at least a grand at all times, then something's about to get sold cause I consider that broke as a worms pecker.

 

[Puffnstuff]

And since people are not perfect and make mistakes I reconcile mine so I stand a better chance of catching mine.

 

[Merad]

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.

Guess what you're doing with bill pay...? About 80% of the banks and credit unions in the US use the same company to provide their billpay service. Major players like BofA get a completely custom UI while most of the smaller credit unions just get a rebranded and slightly tweaked interface, but they all use the same backend systems. I used to work for that company and believe me they screw up quite a bit.

 

[Carson Dyle]

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've seen countless bar tabs paid at the end of the night by totally blotto patrons. They usually tip well, but I guarantee you that few of them remember how much they tipped. I've often wondered how many bartenders don't slip in an extra 1 or change a digit in the tip. It would be easy and difficult for anyone to contest. "Yes, you tipped $15 on a $15 tab. Look, I can find the credit card slip and show you."

I've sat at bars during happy hour on a Monday and watched college students stream in looking for lost credit cards. "I think I was in here Saturday night and I might have left my credit card." What most of the bars do is run the card that night and add an automatic tip of some percentage. In my old watering hole it often took them five or ten minutes just to find the card and the receipt among the stack of cards that were left there on Friday and Saturday night.

 

[Bardock]

I use mint for my cc and bank accounts. It gives me a budget and nags me about my spending and if there's anything unusual I get an email and phone notification. I still check it manually every day for fraud. That and credit sites. But I have never used a checkbook, can count the checks I have written in my life on one hand.

 

[soulcougher73]

What is a checkbook? And i'm 43

But seriously i havent touched a checkbook outside of maybe 2 or 3 times a year for random things that only take checks. I just go to my online account to verify all the purchases look legit.

 

[Tweak155]

I just review the charges to all my accounts to make sure they look correct (right stores, roughly the right price, etc). Have done it that way for a long time now and the only time anything has been caught was automatically by my CC company. They catch them just about as soon as they occur. And I'm fairly active, I log into my stuff usually daily but do sometimes have a span of a few days.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

I use quicken as old as it is. It's the proper way of making sure all your accounts balance and flow through each other correctly. Mint is OK but a little improper in terms of accurate accounting.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

[zinfamous]

I've had a checking account for about 20 years now.

Never "balanced my checkbook." I think the need for this was obsolete long before I was old enough to open my own account.

 

[edro]

I use quicken as old as it is. It's the proper way of making sure all your accounts balance and flow through each other correctly. Mint is OK but a little improper in terms of accurate accounting.

What does Quicken do that a spreadsheet can't?
Pull balances?